SOTERIOLOGY, OR THE DOCTRINE OF SALVATION THROUGH THE WORK OF CHRIST AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

CHAPTER I.

CHRISTOLOGY, OR THE REDEMPTION WROUGHT BY CHRIST.

SECTION' I.—HISTORICAL PREPARATION" FOR REDEMPTION.

Since God Lad from eternity determined to redeem mankind, the history of the race from the time of the fall to the coming of Christ was providentially arranged to prepare the way for this redemption. This preparation was two-fold:

I. Negative Preparation,—in the history of the heathen world.

This showed (1) the true nature of sin, and the depth of spiritual ignorance and of moral depravity to which the race, left to itself, must fall; and (2) the powerlessness of human nature to preserve or regain an adequate knowledge of God, or to deliver itself from sin by philosophy or art.

Why could not Eve have been the mother of the chosen seed, as she doubtless at the first supposed that she was? (Gen. 4 :1—" tnd she conceired ud hire Cain [i.e.' gotten ', or 'acquired '], snd aid I hi?e gotten i nun, eren Monk"). Why was not the cross set up at the gates of Eden? Scripture Intimates that a preparation was needful (Gil. * : 4—"but when the fulness of the time cine. God sent forth his Son "). Of the two agencies made use of, we have called heathenism the negative preparation. But it was not wholly negative; it was partly positive also. "Justin Martyr spoke of a A6yof <rirepMaT(«6? among the heathen. Clement of Alexandria called Plato a Miuo-Jji in-nm^x—a Greek-speaking Moses. Notice the priestly attitude of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Pindar, Sophocles. The Bible recognizes Job, Balaam, Melchisedek, as instances of priesthood, or divine communication, outside the bounds of the chosen people. Heathen religions either were not religions, or God had a part in them. Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, wore at least reformers, raised up in God's providence. Gil. 4 : 3 classes Judaism with the "rudiments of the world," and Rom. 5 : 20 tells us that "the lew cune in beside," as a force cooperating with other human factors, primitive revelation, sin, efc"

But the positive clement in heathenism was slight. Her altars and sacrifices, her philosophy and art, roused cravings which she was powerless to satisfy. Her religious systems became sources of deeper corruption. There was no hope, and no progress. "The Sphynx's moveless calm symbolizes the monotony of Egyptian civilization." Classical nations became more despairing, as they became more cultivated. To the best minds' truth seemed impossible of attainment, and all hope of general well-being seemed a dream. The Jews were the only forward-looking people: and all our modern confidence 1n destiny and development comes from them. They, In their turn, drew their hopefulness solely from prophecy. Not their "genius for religion," but special revelation from God, made them what they were.

Although God was in heathen history, yet so exceptional were the advantages of the Jews, that we can almost assent to the doctrine of the New Englander, Sept., 1883: 576— "The Bible does not recognize other revelations. It speuks of the 'hot of the covering that is cast over all peoples, and the Tail that is spread over all nations' (Is. 25:7); lets 14:16,17—' who in the generations gone bj suffered all the nations to walk in their own ways. And jet he left not himself without witness — not an Internal revelation in the hearts of sages, but an external revelation in nature, 'in that ha did good, and gave Ton from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, filling jour hearts with food and gladness.' The convictions of heathen reformers with regard to divine inspiration were dim and intangible, compared with the consciousness of prophets and apostles that God was speaking through them to his people."

A single people was separated from all others, from the time of Abraham, and was educated in three great truths: (1) the majesty of God, in his unity, omnipotence, and holiness; (2) the sinfulness of man, and his moral helplessness; (3) the certainty of a coming salvation. This education from the time of Moses was conducted by the use of three principal agencies:

A Law.—The Mosaic legislation, (a) by its theophanies and miracles, cultivated faith in a personal and almighty God and Judge; (b) by its commands and threatenings, wakened the sense of sin; (c) by its priestly and sacrificial system, inspired hope of some way of pardon and access to God.

The education of the Jews was first of all an education by Law. In the history of the world, as in the history of the individual, law must precede gospel, John the Baptist must go before Christ, knowledge of sin must prepare a welcome entrance for knowledge of a Savior.

B. Prophecy.—This was of two kinds: (a) verbal,—beginning with the protevangelium in the garden, and extending to within four hundred years of the coming of Christ; (6) typical,—in persons, as Adam, Melchisedek, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Jonah; and in acts, as Isaac's sacrifice, and Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness.

Christ was the reality, to which the types and ceremonies of Judaism pointed; and theso latter disappeared when Christ had come, just as the petals of the blossom drop away when the fruit appears. Many promises to the O. T. saints, which seemed to them promises of temporal blessing, were fulfilled in a better, because a more spiritual, way than they expected. Thus God cultivated in them a boundless trust—a trust which was essentially the same thing with the faith of the new dispensation, because it was the absolute reliance of a consciously helpless sinner upon God's method of salvation, and so was implicitly, though not explicitly, a faith in Christ.

The protevangelium (Gen. 3 :15) said "it [this promised seed] shall bruise thj head." The "it" was rendered in some Latin manuscripts "ipsa." Hence Roman Catholic divines attributed the victory to the Virgin. Notice that Satan was cursed, but not Adam and Eve; for they were candidates for restoration. The promise of the Messiah narrowed Itself down as the race grew older, from Abraham to Judah, David, Bethlehem, and the Virgin. Prophecy spoke of "the sceptre" and of "the seventy weeks." Hnsrgal and Molacbi foretold that the Lord should suddenly come to the second temple. Christ was to be true man and true God; prophet, priest, and king; humbled and exalted. When prophecy had become complete, a brief interval elapsed, and then he, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, actually came.

C. Judgment.—Repeated divine chastisements for idolatry culminated in the overthrow of the kingdom, and the captivity of the Jews. The exile had two principal effects: (a) religious,—in giving monotheism firm root in the heart of the people, and in leading to the establishment of the synagogue-system, by which monotheism was thereafter preserved and propagated; (6) civil,—in converting the Jews from an agricultural to a trading people, scattering them among all nations, and finally imbuing them with the spirit of Soman law and organization.

Thus a people was made ready to receive the gospel and to propagate it throughout the world, at the very time when the world had become conscious of its needs, and, through its greatest philosophers and poets, was expressing its longings for deliverance.

The scattering of the Jews through all lands bad prepared a monotheistic starting* point for the gospel in every heathen city. Jewish synagogues had prepared places of assembly for the hearing of the gospel. The Greek language—the universal literary language of the world—had prepared a medium in which that gospel could be spoken. "Ctesar had unified the Latin West, as Alexander the Greek East": and universal peace, together with Roman roads and Roman law, made it possible for that gospel, when once it had got a foothold, to spread iteelf to the ends of the earth. The first dawn of missionary enterprise appears among the proselyting Jews before Christ's time. Christianity laid hold of this proselyting spirit, and sanctified it, to conquer the world to the faith of Christ. In all these preparations, we see many lines converging to one result, in a manner Inexplicable, unless we take them as proofs of the wisdom and power of God preparing the way for the kingdom of his Son.

The redemption of mankind from sin was to be effected through a Mediator who should unite in himself both the human nature and the divine, in order that he might reconcile God to man and man to God. To facilitate an understanding of the Scriptural doctrine under consideration, it will be desirable at the outset to present a brief

I. Historical Survey Op Views Respecttno The Person Op Christ.

1. The Ebionitea (pOX = 'poor'; A. D. 107?) denied the reality of Christ's divine nature, and held him to be merely man, whether naturally or supernaturally conceived. This man, however, held a peculiar relation to God, in that, from the time of his baptism, an unmeasured fulness of the divine Spirit rested upon him. Ebionism was simply Judaism within the pale of the Christian church, and its denial of Christ's godhood was occasioned by the apparent incompatibility of this doctrine with monotheism.

FUrst (Heb. Lexicon) derives the name ' Eblonite' from the word signifying ' poor': sec Is. 25 : 4—" I hwi hut ha a stronghold to the poor "; Mat 5 : 3—" Blessed an ihe poor in spirit." It means "oppressed, pious souls." Epiphanius traces them back to the Christians who took refuge, A. D. 66, at Pclla, just before the destruction of Jerusalem. They lasted down to the 4th century. Dorncr can assign no age for the formation of the sect, nor any historically ascertained person as its head. It was not Judaic Christianity, but only a fraction of this. There were two divisions of the Ebionites:

(o) The Nazarenes, who held to the supernatural birth of Christ, while they would not go to the length of admitting the preexisting hypostasis of the Son. They had the gospel of Matthew, in Hebrew.

(6) The Cerlnthian Ebionites, who put the baptism of Christ in place of his supernatural birth, and made the ethical sonsbip the cause of the physical. It seemed to them a heathenish fable that the Son of God should be born of the Virgin. There was no personal union between the divine and human In Christ. Christ, as distinct from Jesus, was not a merely impersonal power descending upon Jesus, but a preexisting hypostasis above the world-creating powers. The Cerlnthian Ebionites, who on the whole best represent the spirit of Ebionlsm, approximated to Pharisaic Judaism, and were hostile to the writings of Paul. The Epistle to the Hebrews, in fact, Is intended to counteract an Ebionltic tendency to overstrain law and to underrate Christ. In a complete view, however, should also be mentioned:

(c) The Gnostic Ebionlsm of the pseudo-Clementines, which in order to destroy the deity of Christ and save the pure monotheism, so-called, of primitive religion, gave up even the best part of the Old Testament. In ail Its forms, Ebionisin conceives of God and man as external to each other. God could not become man. Christ was no more than a prophet or teacher, who, as the reward of his virtue was from the time of his baptism specially endowed with the Spirit. After his death he was exalted to kingship. But that would not justify the worship which the church paid him. A merely creaturcly mediator would separate us from God, Instead of uniting us to him. See Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 : 305-307 (Syst. Doct., 3 : 201-304), and Hist. Doct. Person Christ, A. 1:187217; Reuss. Hist. Christ. Theol., 1:100-107; Schaff, Ch. Hist., 1: 212-215.

2. The Docetce (dwu—'to seem,"to appear'; A. D. 70-170),like most of the Gnostics in the second century and the Manichees in the third, denied the reality of Christ's human body. This view was the logical sequence of their assumption of the inherent evil of matter. If matter is evil and Christ was pure, then Christ's human body must have been merely phantasmal. Docetism was simply pagan philosophy introduced into the church.

The Gnostic Basilldes held to a real human Christ, with whom the divine vovt became united at the baptism; but the followers of Basilldes became Docetae. To them, the body of Christ was merely a seeming one. There was no real life or death. Valentinus made the JEoo, Christ, with a body purely pneumatic and worthy of himself, pass through the body of the Virgin, as water through a reed, taking up into itself nothing of the human nature through which he passed; or as a ray of light through colored glass which only imparts to the light a portion of its own darkness. Christ's life was simply a theophany. The Patripassians and Sabellians, who are only sects of the Docetae, denied all real humanity to Christ.

That Docetism appeared so early, shows that the impression Christ made was that of a superhuman being. Among many of the Gnostics, the philosophy which lay at the basis of their Docetism was a pantheistic apotheosis of the world. God did not need to become man, for man was essentially divine. This view, and the opposite error of Judaism, already mentioned, both showed their Insufficiency by attempts to combine with each other, as in the Alexandrian philosophy. See Dorner, Hist. Doct. Person Christ, A. 1:218-252, and Glaubenslehre, 2 :307-310 (Syst. Doct., 3 : 204-206); Neander, Ch. Hist., 1:387.

3. The Arians (Arius, condemned at Nice, 325) denied the integrity of the divine nature in Christ. They regarded the Logos who united himself to humanity in Jesus Christ, not as possessed of absolute godhood, but as the first and highest of created beings. This view originated in a misinterpretation of the Scriptural accounts of Christ's state of humiliation, and in mistaking temporary subordination for original and permanent inequality.

Arianlsui is called by Dorner a reaction from Sabelllanlsm. Sabelllus had reduced tbe incarnation of Christ to a temporary phenomenon. Arius thought to lay stress on the hypostasis of the Son, and to give it fixity and substance. But, to his mind, the reality of Sonship seemed to require subordination to the Father. Origin had taught the subordination of the Son to the Father, in connection with his doctrine of eternal generation. Arius held to the subordination, and also to the generation, but this last, he declared, could not be eternal, but must bo in time. See Dorner, Person Christ, A. 2: 227-344, and Glaubenslehre, 2 : 307, 312, 313 (Syst. Doct., 3 : 203, 207-210); Herzog, Encyclopadle, art.: Arianismus.

4. The Apollinarians (Apollinaris, condemned at Constantinople, 381) denied the integrity of Christ's human nature. According to this view, Christ had no human voir or irvevua, other than that which was furnished by the divine nature. Christ had ouly the human oufia and fvxv', the place of the human vovr or nvcifia was filled by the divine Logos. Apollinarism is an attempt to construe the doctrine of Christ's person in the forms of the Platonic trichotomy.

Lest divinity should seem a foreign element, when added to this curtailed manhood, Apollinaris said that there was an eternal tendency to the human in the Logos himself; that in God was the true manhood; that the Logos is the eternal, archetypal man. But here is no hemming man—only a manifestation in flesh of what the Logos already tras. So we have a Christ of great head and dwarfed body. Justin Martyr preceded Apollinaris in this view. In opposing it, the church Fathers said that" what the Son of God has not taken to himself, he has not sanctified "—to an-poo-A^n-rop xai adtp^vevror. See Dorner, Jahrbuch f. d. Theol., 1 : 397-408—" The Impossibility, on the Arian theory, of making two finite souls into one, finally led to the [Apolllnarian] denial of any human soul in Christ": see also, Dorner, Person Christ, A. 2 :352-399, and Glaubenslehre, 2:310 (Syst. Doct., 3 : 208, 207); Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 1 : 394.

5. The Nestorians (Nestorius, removed from the Patriarchate of Constantinople, 431) denied the real union between the divine and the human natures in Christ, making it rather a moral than an organic one. They refused therefore to attribute to the resultant unity the attributes of each nature, and regarded Christ as a man in very near relation to God. Thus they virtually held to two natures and two persons, instead of two natures in one person.

Nestorius disliked the phrase: "Mary, mother of God." The Chalccdon statement asserted its truth, with the significant addition: "as to bis humanity." Nestorius made Christ a peculiar temple of God. He believed in not ivutrit—Junction and in

dwelling, but not absolute union. He made too much of the analogy of the union of the believer with Christ, and separated as much as possible the divine and the human. The two natures were, in his view, iAAot «ai aAAot, instead of being »>Ao «ai oAAo, which together constitute «tt—one personality. The union which he accepted was a moral union, which makes Christ simply God apd man, instead of tbe God-man.

John of Damascus compared the passion of Christ to the felling of a tree on which the sun shines. The axe fells the tree, but does no hann to the sunbeams. So the blows which struck Christ's humanity caused no harm to his deity; while the flesh suffered, the deity remained impassible. This leaves, however, no divine efficacy of the human sufferings, and no personal union of the human with the divine. The error of Nestorius arose from a philosophic nominalism, which refused to conceive of nature without personality. He believed in nothing more than a local or moral union, like the marriage union, in which two become one; or like the state, which is sometimes called a moral person, because having a unity composed of many persons. See Dorner, Person Christ, B. 1: 53-79, and Glaubenslehre, 2 :315, 316 (Syst. Doct., 3: 211-213); Phillppi, Glaubenslehre, 4 :210; Wilberforce, Incarnation, 152-154.

6. The Eulychians (condemned at Chalcedon, 451) denied the distinction and coexistence of the two natures, and held to a mingling of both into one, which constituted a tertium quid, or third nature. Since in this case the divine must overpower the human, it follows that the human was really absorbed into or transmuted into the divine, although the divine was not in all respects the same, after the union, that it was before. Hence the Eutychians were often called Monophyaites, because they virtually reduced the two natures to one.

They were an Alexandrian school, which Included monks of Constantinople and Egypt. They used the words ovyx<""*> ncTaSoAij—confounding, transformation—to describe the union of the two natures in Christ. Humanity joined to deity was as a drop of honey mingled with the ocean. There was a change in either element, but as when a stone attracts the earth, or a meteorite the sun, or when a small boat pulls a ship, all the movement was virtually on the part of the smaller object. Humanity was so absorbed in deity, as to be altogether lost. The union was illustrated by electron, a metal compounded of silver and gold. A more modern illustration would be that of the chemical union of an acid and an alkali, to form a salt unlike either of the constituents.

In effect this theory denied the human element, and, with this, the possibility of atonement, on the part of human nature, as well as of real union of man with God. Such a magical union of the two natures as Eutyches described is inconsistent with any real hecomingman on the partof the Logos—the manhood Is well-nigh as illusory as upon the theory of the Docetse. See Dorner, Person Christ, B. 1:83-93, and Olaubenslehre, 2 :818, 319 (Syst. Doct., 3:214-216); Guericke, Ch. History, 1: 366-360.

The foregoing survey would seem to show that history had exhausted the possibilities of heresy, and that the future denials of the doctrine of Christ's person must be, in essence, forms of the views already mentioned. All controversies with regard to the person of Christ must, of necessity, hinge upon one of three points: first, the reality of the two natures; secondly, the integrity of the two natures; thirdly, the union of the two natures in one person. Of these points, Ebionism and Docetism deny the reality of the natures; Arianism and Apollinarism deny their integrity; while Nestorianism and Eutychianism deny their proper union. In opposition to all these errors,

7. The Orthodox doctrine (promulgated at Chalcedon, 451) holds that in the one person Jesus Christ there are two natures, a human nature and a divine nature, each in its completeness and integrity, and that these two natures are organically and indissolubly united, yet so that no third nature is formed thereby. In brief, to use the antiquated dictum, orthodox doctrine forbids na either to divide the person or to confound the natures.

That this doctrine is Scriptural and rational, we have yet to show. We may most easily arrange our proofs by reducing the three points mentioned to two, namely: first, the reality and integrity of the two natures; secondly, the union of the two natures in one person.

The formula of Chalcedon Is negative, with the exception of its assertion of a iv<nrt<; vjro<rT(iTi<t*j. It proceeds from the natures, and regards the result of the union to be the person. Each of the two natures is regarded as In movement toward the other. The symbol says nothing of an awnoaTatria of the human nature, nor does it say that the Logos furnishes the ego in the personality. John of Damascus, however, pushed forward to these conclusions, and his work, translated into Latin, was used by Peter Lombard, and determined the views of the Western church of the middle ages. Dorner regards this as having given rise to the Mariolatry. saint-Invocation, and transubstantiation of the Roman Catholic church. See Philippi, Olaubenslehre, 4:189 sq.; Dorner, Person Christ, B. 1:93-119, and Glaubenslehre, 2:320-328 (Syst. Doct., 3 : 216-223), in which last passage may be found valuable matter with regard to the changing uses of the words

irpoawnov, un-offTairis, ovaia, etc.

EL The Two Natures Of CHeist,—Their Reaijty And Integrity.

1. The Humanity of Christ.

A. Its Reality.—This may be shown as follows.

(a) He expressly called himself, and was called, "man."

John 8:40—"yo seek n kill a*, a nun that hath told jou the truth "; lets 2 : 22— "Jesus of Kasareth, s man approved of God onto you "; Rom. 5 :15 — "the one man, Jesus Christ"; 1 Cor. 15 : 21 — " by mau came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead "; 1 Tim. 2:5 — "one mediator also between God and men, himself man. Christ Jesus." Compare the genealogies in Mat. 1:1-17 and Luke 3 : 23-38, tbe former of which proves Jesus to be in the royal line, and the latter of which proves him to be in the natural line, of succession from David; the former tracing back his lineage to Abraham, and the latter to Adam. Christ Is therefore the son of David, and of the stock of Israel. Compare also the phrase "Son of man," e. y. in Hat. 20 : 28. which, however much It may mean in addition, certainly Indicates the veritable humanity of Jesus. Compare, finally, the term "lesh" ( ^ human nature), applied to him in John 1:14 —"and the Word became leak," and in 1 John 4:2—" Every spirit which oonfeawth that Jesus Christ is come in the lesh is of God."

(6) He possessed the essential elements of human nature as at present constituted — a material body and a rational soul.

Hat 26 : 38 — "My soul is exceeding sorrowful"; John 11: 33 — "ho groaned in the spirit"; Mat. 26 : 26 — " this is my body"; 28 — "this is my blood"; Luke 24 :39— "a spirit hath not lesb and bones, as ye behold me haying "; Hob. 2 :14 — " Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same "; 1 John 1:1 — " That which we hare heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life "; 4:2 — " Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is corns in the flesh is of God."

(c) He was moved by the instinctive principles, and he exercised the active powers, which belong to a normal and developed humanity ( hunger, thirst, weariness, sleep, love, compassion, anger, anxiety, fear, groaning, weeping, prayer).

Mat 4 : 2 — "he afterward hungered "; John 19 : 28 — " I thirst"; 4:6 — " Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well''; Mat. 8:24 — "the boat was covered with tbe wares: tat he was asleep''; Mark 10 : 21 — "Jesus looking upon bim loved him "; Mat. 9 : 36 — " when he saw the multitudes, he wsa moved with compassion for them "; Mark 3:5 — " looked round about on them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their heart"; fleb. 5:7 — "supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death "; John 12 : 27—"Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour "; 11:33 — "ha groaned in the spirit"; 35— "Jesus wept"; Mat 14 : 23 — "he went up into tbe mountain apart to pray."

(d) He was subject to the ordinary laws of human development, both in body and soul (grew and waxed strong in spirit; asked questions; grew in wisdom and stature; learned obedience; suffered being tempted; was made perfect through sufferings).

Luke 2 : 40 — " the child grew, and waxed strong, filled with wisdom "; 46 — " sitting in tbe midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions" (here, at his twelfth year, he appears first to become fully conscious that he Is the Sent of God, the Son of God; 49 — " wist ye not that I must be in mj Father's house?" lit. 'in the things of my Father'); 52— " advanced in wisdom and stature "; Heb. 5 : 8 — "learned obedience by the things which he suffered "; 2 :18 — "in that he himself hath suffered being tempted,

he is able to succor them that are tempted "; 10 — "it became him to make the author of their salvation perfect

through sufferings."

(e) He suffered and died (bloody sweat; gave up his spirit; pierced his side, and straightway there came out blood and water ).

Luke 22 : 44 — " being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground "; John 19 : 30 — " he bowed his head, and gave up bis spirit"; 34 — " one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and straightway there came ont blood and water" — held by Stroud, Physical Cause of our Lord's Death, to be proof that Jesus died of a broken heart.

Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, 1: 9-19—"The Lord is said to have (frown in wisdom and favor with God, not because it was so, but because he acted as if it were so. So he was exalted after death, as if this exaltation were on account of death." But we may reply: Resolve all signs of humanity into mere appearance, and you lose the divine nature as well as the human; for God is truth and cannot act a lie. The babe, the child, even the man, in certain respects, was ignorant. Jesus, the boy, was not making crosses, as in Overbeck's picture, but rather yokes and plows, as Justin Martyr relates—serving a real apprenticeship in Joseph's workshop: Mirk 6:3— '• Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?"

See Holman Hunt's picture, "The Shadow of the Cross" —in which not Jesus, but only Mary, sees the shadow of the cross upon the wall. He lived a life of faith, as well as of prayer (Heb. 12 : 2 — "Jesus the author [ captain, prince ] and perfoctor of our faith ") dependent upon Scripture, which was much of it, as Pa. 16 and 113, and Is. 49, 50, 61, written for him, as as well as about him. See Park, Discourses, 297-327; Deutsch, Remains, 131 —"The boldest transcendental flight of the Talmud is its saying: 4God prays.'" In Christ's humanity, united as it is to deity, we have the fact answering to this piece of Talmudio poetry.

B. Its Integrity.—We here use the term 'integrity' to signify, not merely completeness, but perfection. That which is perfect is, a fortiori, complete in all its parts. Christ's human nature was:

(a) Supernaturally conceived.

Lake 1: 35 — " And Mary said unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee," The "seed of the woman" (Gen. 3 :15) was one who had no earthly father. "Ire" = life, not only as being the source of physical life to the race, but also as bringing into the world him who was to be its spiritual life. Julius Mtiller, Proof-texts, 29—Jesus Christ "had no earthly father; his birth was a creative act of God, breaking through the chain of human generation." Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 : 447 (Syst. Doct., 3:346) — "The new science recognizes manifold methods of propagation, and that too even In one and the same species."

(6) Free, both from hereditary depravity, and from actual sin.

Lake 1: 35 — " Wherefore also the holy thing which is begotten shall be called the Son of God "; John 8 : 46 — "Vhieh of you oonvicteth me of sin?" 14 : 30 — "the prince of the world eometh: and he hath nothing in me" = not the slightest evil inclination upon which his temptations can lay hold; Rom. 8: 3 — "in the likeness of sinful nosh " = In flesh, but without the sin which, in other men, clings to the flesh; 2 Cor. 5 : 21 — "him who knew no sin "; Heb. 4:15 — "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin "; 7: 26 —" holy, guileless, undenled. separated from tinners" — by the fact of his Immaculate conception; S: 14 — " through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God "; I Pet 1 :19 — " precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ"; 2 : 22 — " who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth "; 1 John 3 : 5, 7 — "in him is no sin ... he is righteous."

Julius Mil Her, Proof-texts, 29 —"Had Christ been only human nature, he could not have been without sin. But life can draw out of the putrescent clod materials for Its own living. Divine life appropriates the human." Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:448 (Syst. Doct., 3:344) —"What with us is regeneration, is with him the Incarnation of God." In this origin of Jesus' sinlessness from his union with God, we see the absurdity, both doctrinally and practically, of speaking of an Immaculate conception of the Virgin, and of making her sinlessness precede that of her Son. On the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate conception of the Virgin, see H. B. Smith, System, 389-392. "Christ took human nature, in such a way that this nature, without sin, bore the consequences of sin." That portion of human nature which the Logos took Into union with himself was, In the very instant and by the fact of his taking It, purged from all Its Inherent depravity.

But if in Christ there was no sin, or tendency to sin, how could he be tempted? In the same way, we reply, that Adam was tempted. Christ was not omniscient: Mark 13 : 32 — "of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Only at the close of the first temptation does Jesus recognize Satan as the adversary of souls; Mat. 4 :10 — "Got that hence. Satan." Jesus could be tempted, not only because he was not omniscient, but also because he bad the keenest susceptibility to all the forms of innocent desire. To these desires temptation may appeal. Sin consists, not in these desires, but in the gratification of them out of God's order, and contrary to God's will. So Satan appealed (Hat 4 : 1-11) to the desire for food, for applause, for power; to "ITeberglaube, Aberglaube, Cngloube" ( Kurtz); cf. Mat 28 : 39; 27 : 42; 26 : 53. All temptation must be addressed either to desire or fear; so Christ "»u in all pointa tempted like as we we" (Heb. 4 : IS). The first temptation, in the wilderness, was addressed to desire; the second, in the garden, was addressed to fear. Satan, after the first, "departed from kirn for a season" (lake 4 :13); but he returned. In Gethsemane — " the pnnce of the world cometh: and be haLo nothing in mo" (John 14 : 30) — if possible, to deter Jesus from his work, by rousing- within him vast and agonizing- fears of the suffering and death that lay before him. Yet, In spite of both the desire and the fear with which his holy soul was moved, he was "without«in" (Heb. 4 : IS). Even in Gethsemane and on Calvary, Christ never prays for forgiveness —he only Imparts It to others. See UUman, Slnlessness of Jesus; Thomasius, Christl Person und Werk, 2 : 7-17, 128-138, esp. 135, 136; Schaff, Person of Christ, 51-72.

Psalm 8:4-8 — " thou hut made him bat little lower than God. Ind crownest him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to hare dominion over the works of thy hands; Thou halt put all things under hit feet" — a description of the ideal man, which finds Its realization only in Christ. Heb. 2:6-10 — " But now we see not jet all thing! subjected under him. But we behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus.

because of the suffering of death crowned with glorj and honor." 1 Cor. 15 : 45 — " The first.... Adam The last

Adam" —Implies that the second Adam realized the full concept of humanity, which failed to be realized in the first Adam; so Terse 40 —" as we hare borne the image of the earthy [ man ], we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" [ man ]. 1 Cor. 3 :18 — " the glory of the Lord" Is the pattern, into whose likeness we are to be changed. Phil. 3 : 21 — " who shall fashion anew the body of oar humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory "; Col. 1:18 — " that in all things he might hare the pre-eminence "; 1 Pet. 2 : 21 — " Suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow bis stops "; 1 John 3:3 — " Every one that hath this hope set on him purifleth himself, even as he is pure."

The phrase "Son of man" (John 5:27; cf. Ban. 7:13, Com. of Pusey, in loco, and Westcott, In Bible Com. on John, 32-35) seems to Intimate that Christ answers to the perfect Idea of humanity, as it at first existed In the mind of God. Not that he was surpossingly lieautif ul In physical form : for the only way to reconcile the seemtnirly conflicting intimations Is to suppose that in all outward respects he took our average humanity—at one time appearing without form or comeliness (Is 53 : 2), and aged before his time (John 8: 57 — " Thou art not yet fifty years old "), at another time revealing so much of his inward grace and glory that men were attracted and awed (Ps. 45 : 2 — " Thou art fairer than the children of men ": Luke 4 : 22 — "the words of grace which proceeded out of his mouth"; Mark 10 : 32 — "Jesus was going before them: and they were amazed; and they that followed were afraid "; Mat 17 :1-8 — the account of the transfiguration). Compare the Byzantine pictures of Christ with those of the Italian painters.

But in all spiritual respects Christ was perfect. In him are united all the excellences of both the sexes, of all temperaments and nationalities and characters. He possesses, not simply passive innocence, but positive and absolute holiness, triumphant through temptation. Ho Includes in himself all objects and reasons for affection and worship; so that, in loving him, "love can never love too much." Christ's human nature, therefore, and not human nature as It Is in us, is the true basis of ethics and of theology. This absence of narrow Individuality, this ideal, universal manhood, could not have been secured by merely natural laws of propagation—It was secured by Christ's miraculous conception; see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 : 448 (Syst. Doct., 3 :344).

(d) A human nature that found its personality only in union with the divine nature,—in other words, a human nature impersonal, in the sense that it had no personality separate from the divine nature, and prior to its union therewith.

By the Impersonality of Christ's human nature, we mean only that it had no personality before Christ took it, no personality before its union with the divine. It was a human nature whose consciousness and will were developed only in union with the personality of the Logos. The Fathers therefore rejeoted the word iwnoaraaia, and substituted the word iyvnoaraaia—they favored not impersonality but impersonality. In still plainer terms, the Logos did not take into union with himself an already developed human person, such as James, Peter, or John, but human nature before It had become pergonal or was capable of receiving a name. It reached its personality only in union with his own divine nature. Therefore we see in Christ not two persons—a human person and a divine person—but one person, and that person possessed of a human nature as well as of a divine. For proof of this, see note on the Union of the two Natures in one Person.

(e) A human nature germinal, and capable of self-communication, —so constituting him the spiritual head and beginning of a new race.

In Is. 9 : 6, Christ is called "Era-lasting Father." In Is. 53 :10, it is said that "he shall see bis seed." In Rev. 22 :16, he calls himself "the root" as well as "the offspring of Darid." See also John 5 : 21— "the Son also quickeneth whom he will"; 15:1—"I am the true Tine"—whose roots are planted in heaven, not on earth; the vine-man, from whom as its stock the new life of humanity is to spring, and Into whom the half-withered branches of the old humanity are to be grafted that they may have life divine. See Trench, Sermon on Christ, the True Vine, in Hulsean Lectures. John 17 : 2—"thou gavest him authority over all flesh, that whatsoever thou hast given him, to them he should gire eternal life"; 1 Cor. 15 : 45—"the last idam became a life-firing spirit" — here "spirit" =, not the Holy Spirit, nor Christ's divine nature, but " the ego of his total divinehuman personality."

Eph. 5 : 23—" Christ also is the head of the church " —- the head to which all the members are united, and from which they derive life and power; Col. 1:18—"who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead "; in Heb. 2 :13, Christ says: "Behold, I and the children which God hath given me." The new race is propagated after the analogy of the old; the first Adam is the source of physical, the second Adam of spiritual, life; the first Adam the source of corruption, the second of holiness. Hence John 12 ; 24—"if it die, it beareth much fruit"; Mat. 10 : 37 and Luke 14 : 26— "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me" = none Is worthy of me, who prefers his old natural ancestry to his new spiritual descent and relationship. Thus Christ is not simply the noblest embodiment of the old humanity, but also the fountain-head and beginning of a new humanity, the new source of life for the race. See Wllberforce, Incarnation, 227-241; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 638-664; Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2: 461 sq. (Syst. Doct., 3 : 349 *}.).

The passages here alluded to abundantly confute the Docetic denial of Christ's veritable human body, and the Apollinarian denial of Christ's veritable human soul. More than this, they establish the reality and integrity of Christ's human nature, as possessed of all the elements, faculties, and powers essential to humanity.

2. The Deity of Christ.

The reality and integrity of Christ's divine nature have been sufficiently proved in a former chapter of these lectures (see pages 145-150). We need only refer to the evidence there given, that, during his earthly ministry, Christ:

(a) Possessed a knowledge of his own deity.

John 3 :13—"the Son of man. which is in heaven"—a passage which clearly indicates Christ's consciousness, at certain times in his earthly life at least, that he was not confined to earth, but was also In heaven [ here, however, Westcott and Hort, with K and B, omit 6 •>» «V nf ovpavy] ; 8 : 58—" Before Abraham was born, I am "—here Jesus declares that there Is a respect in which the idea of birth and beginning does not apply to him, but in which he can apply to himself the name "I em" of the eternal God; 14 : 9,10—" Hare I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; how say est thou, Shew us the father? Believest thou not that I am in the father, and the Father in me?"

(b) Exercised divine attributes and prerogatives.

John 2 ; 24, 25—" But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that ho knew all men, and because he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for ha himself knew what was in man "; Mark 4 : 39—"He awoke, and rebuked the wind, and laid onto the sea, Peace, be still. Ind the wind ceased, and there was a great calm "; Mat * : 6 —"bat that ye may know that the Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins < tben salts he to the sick of the peisy), arise, and take up thy bed, and go unto thy home "; Mark 2 : 7—" Why doth this man thus speak? he blaspbemeth: who oan forgive sins but one, even God,"

But this is to say, in other words, that there were, in Christ, a knowledge and a power such as belong only to God. The passages cited furnish a refutation of both the Ebionite denial of the reality, and the Arian denial of the integrity, of the divine nature in Christ.

Napoleon to Count Montholon (Bcrtrand's Memoirs): "I think I understand somewhat of human nature, and I tell you all these [heroes of antiquity] were men, and I am a man; but not one is like him: Jesus Christ was more than man." See other testimonies in Schaff, Person of Christ. Even Channlng speaks of Christ as more than a human being—as having exhibited a spotless purity which is the highest distinction of heaven. F. W. Robertson has called attention to the fact that the phrase "Son of man" (John 5 : 27; cf. Kan. 7 :13) itself implies that Christ was more than man; it would have been an impertinence for him to have proclaimed himself Son of man, unless he had claimed to be something more; could not every human being call himself the same? When one takes this for his characteristic designation, as Jesus did, he implies that there is something strange in his being Son of man; that this is not his original condition and dignity; in other words, that he is also Son of Ood.

It corroborates the argument from Scripture, to find that Christian experience lnstlnctively recognizes Christ's Godhead, and that Christian history shows a new conception of the dignity of childhood and of womanhood, of the sacredness of human life, and of the value of a human soul—all arising from the belief that, In Christ, the Godhead honored human nature by taking it Into perpetual union with Itself, by bearing its guilt and punishment, and by raising It up from the dishonors of the grave to the glory of heaven. We need both the humanity and the deity of Christ: the humanity—for, as Michael Angelo's Last Judgment witnesses, the ages that neglect Christ's humanity must have some human advocate and Savior, and find a poor substitute for the ever-present Christ in Mariolatry, the invocation of the saints, and the ' real presence' of the wafer and the mass; the deity—for, unless Christ is God, he cannot offer an infinite atonement for us, nor bring about a real union between our souls and the Father. Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 : 325-327 (Syst. Doct., S: 221-223)—" Mary and the saints took Christ's place as Intercessors in heaven: transubstantiation furnished a present Christ on earth"). See also Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 1: 282,351; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 127,207, 458; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1; 61-64; Hovey, God with Us, 17-23; Bengel on John 10 : 30.

m. The Union Of The Two Natures In One Person.

Distinctly as the Scriptures represent Jesus Christ to have been possessed of a divine nature and of a human nature, each unaltered in essence and undivested of its normal attributes and powers, they with equal distinctness represent Jesus Christ as a single undivided personality in whom these two natures are vitally and inseparably united, so that he is properly, not God and man, but the God-man. The two natures are bound together, not by the moral tie of friendship, nor by the spiritual tie which links the believer to his Lord, but by a bond unique and inscrutable, which constitutes them one person with a single consciousness and will—this consciousness and will including within their possible range both the human nature and the divine.

1. Proof of this Union.

(a) Christ uniformly speaks of himself, and is spoken of, as a single person. There is no interchange of 'I' and 'thou' between the human and the divine natures, such as we find between the persons of the Trinity {John 17 : 23). Christ never uses the plural number in referring to himself, unless it be in John 3 : 11—"we speak that we do know," and even here "we" is more probably used as inclusive of the disciples. 1 John 4 : 2— ■"is come in the flesh"—is supplemented by John 1 : 14—'*became flesh"; and these texts together assure us that Christ so came in human nature as to make that nature an element in his single personality.

John 17 : 23—" I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that then 'didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou loiedst me "; 3 :11—" We speak that we do know, and bear witness of that we hare seen; and ye receive not our witness "; 1 John 4 : 2—" Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God"; John 1:14—"and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among u»" = he so came In human nature that human nature and himself formed, not two persons, but one person.

(6) The attributes and powers of both natures are ascribed to the one Christ, and conversely the works and dignities of the one Christ are ascribed to either of the natures, in a way inexplicable, except upon the principle that these two natures are organically and indissolubly united in a single person ( examples of the former usage are Kom. 1 : 3 and 1 Pet. 3 : 18; of the latter, 1 Tim. 2 : 5 and Heb. 1 : 2, 3). Hence we can say, on the one hand, that the Qod-man existed before Abraham, yet was born in the reign ■of Augustus Caesar, and that Jesus Christ wept, was weary, suffered, died, jet is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; on the other hand, that a divine Savior redeemed us upon the cross, and that the human Christ is present with his people even to the end of the world (Eph. 1 : 23; 4:10; Mat. 28 : 20).

Rom. 1: 3—"his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh "; 1 Pet. 3 : IS—"Christ also suffered for sins once .... being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit": 1 Tim. 2:5—"one Mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus"; Heb. 1: 2, 3—" bis Son, whom he appointed heir of all things

who being the effulgence of bis glory when he had nude purification of sins, sat down on the right hand

of the Majesty on high "; Eph. 1: 22, 23—" put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all"; 4 :10—" he that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things": Mat 28 : 20—"lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

(c) The constant Scriptural representations of the infinite value of Christ's atonement and of the union of the human race with God which has been secured in him are intelligible only when Christ is regarded, not as a man of God, but as the God-man, in whom the two natures are so united that what each does has the value of both.

1 John 2 : 2—" He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world "; Eph. 2: 16-18—" might reconcile them both [ Jew and Gentile ] in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby; and he came and preached peace to you that were far off. and peace to them that were nigh: for through him we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father"; 21: 22—"in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit"; 2 Pet. 1: 4—"that through these [promises] ye may become partakers of the divine nature."

(d) It corroborates this view to remember that the universal Christian ■consciousness recognizes in Christ a single and undivided personality, and ■expresses this recognition in its services of song and prayer.

The foregoing proof of the union of a perfect human nature and of a perfect divine nature in the single person of Jesus Christ suffices to refute both the Nestorian separation of the natures and the Eutychian confounding of them. Certain modern forms of stating the doctrine of this union, however — forms of statement into which there enter some of the misconceptions already noticed — need a brief examination, before we proceed to our own attempt at elucidation.

'partook of flesh and blood'; 2 Cor. 5 :19—' God was in Christ'; Col. 2 : 9—' in him dwelleth all the fulness of

the Godhead bodily'); (21 new creation of the second Adam, by the Holy Ghost and power of the Highest (Rom. 5 :14—' Adam's transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come'; 1 Cor. 15 : 22—' Is in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive *; 15 : 45—' the first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a iife-gmng spirit1; Lake 1 : 35—'the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Host High shall overshadow thee'; Mat 1: 20—' that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost' 1; (3) becoming flesh, without contraction of deity or humanity (1 Tim. 3 :16—'who was manifested in the flesh1; 1 John 4:2—' Jesus Christ is come m the flesh ; John 6 : 41, 51—' 1 am the bread which came down from heaven ... I am the living bread '; 2 John 7—' Jesus Christ comelh in the flesh'; John 1 : 14—' the Word became lash.' This last text cannot mean: The Logos ceased to be what he was, and began to be only man. Nor can it be a mere theophany. In human form. The reality of the humanity is intimated, as well as the reality of the Logos."

The Lutherans hold to a communion of the natures, as well as to an impartation of their proi>erties: (1) gcmui vliomatimm = irnpartution of attributes of both natures to the one person; (2) ytrntit apotelzxmalicum (from airoT«'Aeo>a,'that which is finished or completed,' (. e. Jesus' work) — attributes of the one person imparted to each of the constituent natures. Hence Mary may be called "the mother of God," as the Chaieedon symbol declares, "as to his humanity," and what each nature did has the value of both; (3) genua inajcaktticum = attributes of one nature imparted to the other, yet so that the divine nature imparts to the human, not the human to the divine. The Lutherans do not believe in a genus tapeiiwticon, i. c, that the human elements communicated themselves to the divine. The only communication of the human was to the person, not to the divine nature, of the God-man. Examples of this third genm majcutatkum are found in John 3 : 3 — " Ho man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven, even the Son of man, which is in heaven" [here, however, Westeott and Hort, with N and B, omit o wv iv Tu» oipwu]; 5 : 27 — " he gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man." Of the explanation that this is the figure of speech called "allirmls." Luther says: "Allirmls est larva quiedam diaboli, secundum cujus rationes ego eerte nolim esse Ohristianus."

The genu* mtijestaticiim is denied by the Reformed Church, on the ground that it does not permit a clear distinction of the natures. And this is one great difference between it and the Lutheran church. So Hooker, in commenting upon the Son of man's "ascending up where he was before," says: "By the 'Son of man' must be meant the whole person of Christ, who, being man upon earth, filled heaven with his glorious presence; but not according to that nature for which the title of man is given him." For the Lutheran view of this union and its results in the communion of natures, see Hase, Hutterus Redivivus, 11th ed., 195-197; Thomasius, Christ! Person und Werk, 2 :24, 25. For Reformed view, see Turretin, loo, 13, qutest. 8; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:387-397. 407-418.

2. Modern misrepresentations of this union.

A. The theory of Gess and Beecher, that the humanity in Christ is a contracted and metamorphosed deity.

The advocates of this view maintain that the divine Logos reduced himself to the condition and limits of human nature, and thus literally became a human soul. The theory diners from ApoUinarism, in that it does not necessarily presuppose a trichotomous view of man's nature. While ApoUinarism, however, denied the human origin only of Christ's wvev/ia, this theory extends the denial to his entire immaterial being — his body alone being derived from the Virgin. It is held, in slightly varying forms, by the Germans, Hofmann and Ebrard, as well as by Gess; and Henry Ward Beecher is its chief representative in America.

Gess holds that Christ gave up his eternal holiness and divine self-consciousness, to become man, so that he never during his earthly life thought, spoke, or wrought as God. but was at all times destitute of dlvino attributes. See Gobs, 8crlpture Doctrine of the Person of Christ; and synopsis of his view, by Reubelt, in Bib. Sao., 1870 :1-32; Hofmann, Schrlftbewels, 1: 334-241, and 2 ; 20; Ebrard, Dogmatik, 2 :144-151, and in Herzog, Encyclopttdie, art.: Jesus Christ, der Oottmensch; also Liebner, Chrlstliche Dogmatik. Henry Ward Beecber, in his Life of Jesus tho Christ, chap. 3, emphasizes the word "flesh." in John 1:14, and declares the passage to mean that the divine Spirit enveloped himself in a human bitty, and in that condition was subject to the indispensable limitations of material laws. All these advocates of the view hold that Deity was dormant, or paralyzed, in Christ during his earthly life. Its essence is there, but not its efficiency at any time.

Against this theory we urge the following objections:

(a) It rests upon a false interpretation of the passage John 1 : 14— 6 Myus odpf iyhero. The word irdpf here has ite common New Testament meaning. It designates neither soul nor body alone, but human nature in its totality (cf. John 3 : 6 — rb ytyewTiptvav tx rye aapnoc nap% ianv ■ Rom. 7: 8 — Ovk oiKel iv ifioi, Tovt Ianv ev ry oapni fiov, ayaiiov). That iylvero does not imply a transmutation of the Myoc into human nature, or into a human soul, is evident from lon^vuatv which follows — an allusion to the Shechinah of the Mosaic tabernacle; and from the parallel passage 1 John 4 : 2 — hi aapxl ehtXvdora—where we are taught not only the oneness of Christ's person, but the distinctness of the constituent natures.

John 1:14—"tho Word became flesh, and dwelt [tabernacled] among us, and we beheld his glorj ";3:6— "that which ii bom of the flesh is lash "; Rom. 7 :13—" in me, that is, in mj flesh, dwelleth no good thing "; 1 John 4 : 2—"Jems Christ is come in the flesh." Since "flesh," in Scriptural usage, denotes human nature in its entirety, there is as little reason to infer from these passages a change of the Logos into a human body, as a change of the Logos into a human soul.

(6) It contradicts the two great classes of Scripture passages already referred to, which assert on the one hand the divine knowledge and power of Christ and his consciousness of oneness with the Father, and on the other hand the completeness of his human nature and its derivation from the stock of Israel and the seed of Abraham (Mat. 1 : 1-16; Heb. 2 : 16). Thus it denies both the true humanity, and the true deity, of Christ.

See the Scripture passages cited In proof of the Deity of Christ, pages 145-150. Gess himself acknowledges that, if the passages in which Jesus avers his divine knowledge and power and his consciousness of oneness with the Father refer to his earthly life, his theory is overthrown. "Apolllnarism had a certain sort of grotesque grandeur, in giving to the human body and soul of Christ an infinite, divine irnGjia. It maintained at least the divine side of Christ's person. But the theory before us denies both sides." While It so curtails deity that it Is no proper deity. It takes away from humanity all that is valuable In humanity; for a manhood that consists only In body is no proper manhood. 8uch manhood is like the "half-length" portrait which depicted only the lower half of the man. Mat. 1:1-16, the genealogy of Jesus, and Heb. 2 :16—"taketh hold of tho seed of Abraham "—intimate that Christ took all that belonged to human nature.

(c) It is inconsistent with the Scriptural representations of God's immutability, in maintaining that the Logos gives up the attributes of godhead, and his place and office as second person of the Trinity, in order to contract himself into the limits of humanity. Since attributes and substance are correlative terms, it is impossible to hold that the substance of God is in Christ, so long as he does not possess divine attributes. The only exit from this difficulty is through the pantheistic hypothesis that God and man are not two, but one, in essence. To pantheism, therefore, this theory actually tends.

/

See Dorner, Unverltnderlichkeit Gottes, in Jahrbuch fUr deutsche Theologie, 1: 381; 2 : 440; 3 : 579; esp. 1 : 390-412—" firae holds that, during the thirty-three years of Jesus' earthly life, the Trinity was altered; the Father no more poured his fulness into the Son; the Son no more, with the Father, sent forth the Holy Spirit; the world was upheld and governed by Father and Spirit alone, without the mediation of" the Son; the Father ceased to beget the Son. He says the Father alone has awltii; he is the only Monas. The Trinity is a family, whose head is the Father, but whose number and condition is variable. To Gess, it is indifferent whether the Trinity consists of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or (as during Jesus' life) of only one. But this is a Trinity in which two members arc accidental. A Trinity that can get along without one of its members Is not the Scriptural Trinity. The Father depends on the Son, and the Spirit depends Od the Son, as much as the Son depends on the Father. To take away the Son is to take away the Father and the Spirit. This Riving up of the actuality of his attributes, even of his holiness, on the part of the Logos, |g jn order to make it possible for Christ to sin. But can we ascribe the possibility of sin to a being who Is really God? The reality of temptation requires us to postulate a veritable human soul."

That the theory naturally tends to pantheism, can be seen In Goodwin, Christ and Humanity, who takes the ground that man and God are of the same essence. Beecher, too, says that man and God are of the same nature, and that man is to become divine. So Gess calls the human soul a spark of the divine flame. But we cannot believe either in a man changed to a God, or in a God changed to a man. In the one case God ceases to be God, in the other man ceases to be man. If God's Spirit constitutes Christ's human soul, and In like manner every other human soul also, then there is no difference between Christ and us but one of degree, and we may justify William Blake's blasphemous saying to Crabbe Hobinson: "Jesus Christ is the only God, and so am I, and so are you."

(d) It is destructive of the whole Scriptural scheme of salvation, in that it renders impossible any experience of human nature on the part of the divine, — for when God becomes man he ceases to be God; in that it renders impossible any sufficient atonement on the part of human nature, — for mere humanity, even though its essence be a contracted and dormant deity, is not capable of a suffering which shall have infinite value; in that it renders impossible any proper union of the human race with God in the person of Jesus Christ, — for where true deity and true humanity are both absent, there can be no union between the two.

See Dorner, Jahrbuch f. d. Theologie, 1 : 390—" Upon this theory only an exhlbltory atonement can be maintained. There Is no real humanity t hat, in the strength of divinity, can bring a sacrifice to God. Not substitution, therefore, but obedience, on this view, reconciles us to God. Even if it Is said that God's Spirit is the real soul in all men, this will not help the matter; for we should then have to make an essential distinction between the indwelling of the Spirit in the unregenerate, the regenerate, and Christ, respectively. But in that case we lose the likeness between Christ's nature and our own—Christ's being prefxistont, and ours not. Without {his pantheistic doctrine, Christ's unlikeness to us is yet greater; for he is really a wandering God, clothed in a human body, and cannot properly be called a human soul. We have then no middle-point between the body and the Godhead; and In the state of exaltation, we have no manhood at all—only the infinite Logos, In a glorified body as his garment."

Isaac Watts's theory of a prefc'xistent humanity in like manner Implies that humanity is originally in deity; it does not proceed from a human stock, but from a divine; between the human and the divine there is no proper distinction: hence there can be no proper redeeming of humanity; see Bib. Sac, 1875 : 421. On the theory in general, see Hovey, God with Us, 62-89; Hodge, Syst. Thool., 2 : 430-440; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 4: 388-408; Biedermann, Christliche Dogmatik, 356-359; Bruce, Humiliation of Christ, 187, 280.

B. Theory of Domer and Bothe, that the union between the divine and the human natures is not completed by the incarnating act.

The advocates of this view maintain that the union between the two natnreH is accomplished by a gradual communication of the fulness of the divine Logos to the man Christ Jesus. This communication is mediated by the human consciousness of Jesus. Before the human consciousness begins, the personality of the Logos is not yet divine-human. The personal union completes itself only gradually, as the human consciousness is sufficiently developed to appropriate the divine.

Dorner, Glaubenslehre,2 : 860 (Syst. Doot., 4 :125) —" In order that Christ might show his high-priestly love by suffering and death, the different sides of his personality yet stood to one another in relative separableness. The divine-human union in him, accordingly, was before his death not yet completely actualized, although its completion was from the beginning divinely assured." 2 : 431 (S3'st. Doct., 3 : 328)—" In spite of this hemming. Inside of the I7nio, the Logos is from the beginning united with Jesus in the deepest foundation of his being, and Jesus' life has ever been a divine-human one, in that

a present receptivity for the Godhead has never remained without its satisfaction

Even the unconscious humanity of the babe turns receptively to the Logos, as the plant turns toward the light. The initial union makes Christ already the God-man, but not in such n way as to prevent a subsequent brcomina; for surely he did become omniscient and incapable of death, as he was not at the beginning."

2 : 484 (Syst. Doct., 8 : 383)—" The actual life of God, as the logos, reaches beyond the beginnings of the divine-human life. For if the Unto is to complete itself by growth, the relation of impartation and reception must continue. In his personal consciousness, there was a distinction between duty and being. The will had to take up practically, and turn into action, each new revelation or perception of God's will on the part of Intellect or conscience. He had to maintain, with his will, each revelation of his nature and work. In his twelfth year, he says: 'I must be about my Father's business.' To Satan's temptation: 'Art thou God's Son?' he must reply with an affirmation that suppresses all doubt, though he will not prove it by miracle. This moral growth, as it was the will of the Father, was his task. He hears from his Father, and obej"s. In him, imperfect knowledge was never the same with false conception. In us, ignorance has error for its obverse side. But this was never the case with him, though he grew in knowledge unto the end." Dorner's view of the Person of Christ may be found in his Hist. Doct. Person Christ. 5:248-281; Glaubenslehre, 2 : 347-474 (Syst. Doct., 3 : 243-373).

A summary of his views is also given in Princeton Rev., 1873 : 71-87 — Dorner Illustrates the relation between the humanity and the deity of Christ by the relation between God and man, in conscience, and in the witness of the Spirit. "So far as the human element was immature or incomplete, so far the Logos was not present. Knowledge advanced to unity with the Logos, and the human will afterwards confirmed the best and highest knowledge. A resignation of both the Logos and the human nature to the union is Involved In the incarnation. The growth continues until the Idea, and the reality, of divine humanity perfectly coincide. The assumption of unity was gradual, in the life of Christ. His exaltation began with the perfection of this development." Rothe's statement of the theory can be found In his Dogmatik, 2 : 49-182; and in Bib. Sac, 27 :388.

It is objectionable for the following reasons:

(a) The Scripture plainly teaches that that which was born of Mary was as completely Son of God as Son of man ( Luke 1 : 35) ; and that in the incarnating act, and not at his resurrection, Jesus Christ became the Godman ( Phil. 2:7). But this theory virtually teaches the birth of a man who subsequently and gradually became the God-man, by consciously appropriating the Logos to whom he sustained ethical relations—relations with regard to which the Scripture is entirely silent.

In Lake 1: 35 — "the hoiy thing which is begotten shall be called the Son of God"— and Phil. 2:7 — "emptied himself, taking the form of a serrant, being made in the likeness of men "—we have evidence that Christ was both Son of God and Son of man from the very beginning of his earthly life. But, according to Dorner, before there was any human consciousness, the personality of Jesus Christ was not divine-human.

(b) Since consciousness and will belong to personality, as distinguished from nature, the hypothesis of a mutual, conscious, and voluntary appropriation of divinity by humanity and of humanity by divinity, during the earthly life of Christ, is but a more subtle form of the Nestorian doctrine of a double personality. It follows, moreover, that as these two personalities do not become absolutely one until the resurrection, the death of the man Jesus Christ, to whom the Logos has not yet fully united himself, cannot possess an infinite atoning efficacy.

Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 2 : 68-70, objects to Dorner's view, that it " leads us to a man who is in intimate communion with God—a man of Ood, but not a man who is God." He maintains, against Dorner, that the union between the divine and human in Christ exists before the consciousness of it." 193-195—Dorner's view "makeseach element, the divine and the human, long for the other, and reach its truth and reality only in the other. This, so far as the divine is concerned, is very like pantheism. Two uilliiia personalities are presupposed, with ethical relation to each other—two persons, at least at the first. Says Dorner: 'So long as the manhood is yet unconscious, the person of the Logos Is not yet the central Ctfo of this man. At the beginning, the Logos does not impart himself, so far as he is person or self-consciousness. He keeps apart by himself, Just in proportion as the manhood fails in power of perception." At the beginning, then, this man is not yet the God-man; the Logos only works in him, and on him. *The n/ifo pcrno»taii8 grows and completes itself — becomes ever more allsided and complete. Till the resurrection, there is a relative separability still.' Thus Dorner. But the Scripture knows nothing of an ethical relation of the divine to the human in Christ's person. It knows only of one divine-human subject." See also Thomasius, 2 : 80-92.

(c) While this theory asserts a final complete union of God and man in Jesus Christ, it renders this union far more difficult to reason, by holding it to be a merging of two persons in one, rather than a union of two natures in one person. We have seen, moreover, that the Scripture gives no countenance to the doctrine of a double personality during the earthly life of Christ. The God-man never says: "I and the Logos are one "; "he that hath seen me hath seen the Logos "; "the Logos is greater than I"; "I go to the Logos." In the absence of all Scripture evidence iu favor of this theory, we must regard the rational and dogmatic arguments against, it as conclusive.

Liebner, in Jahrbuch f. d. Theologie, 3 : 349-366, urges, against Dorner, that there is no sign in Scripture of such communion between the two natures of Christ as exists between the three persons of the Trinity. Phillppi also objects to Dorner's view: (1) that it implies a pantheistic identity of essence in both God and man; (2) that it makes the resurrection, not the birth, the time when the Word became flesh: (3) that it does not explain how two personalities can become one: see Phillppi, Glaubenslehre, 4: 364-380. The merging of two personalities in one seems at first sight to be made easier by the pantheistic assumption that God and man are essentially one; and Dorner, though strenuously denying that he Is a pantheist, is quoted as saying: "The unity of essence of God and man is the great discovery of this age." He doubtless thinks that he excludes pantheism by his earnest assertion of personality. But not only is one nature and two persons the direct opposite of the Scripture doctrine; but it is difficult, upon the assumption of a single essence, to see how there can bo any such thing as distinct personalities at all. See also Biedermann, Dogmatik, 351-353; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2 : 428-430.

3. The real nature of this union.

(a) Ite great importance.—While the Scriptures represent the person of Christ as the crowning mystery of the Christian scheme (Matt. 11 : 27; Col. 1 : 27; 2:2; 1 Tim. 3 : 16), they also incite us to its study (John 17 : 3; 20 : 27; Luke 24 : 39; Phil. 3 : 8, 10). This is the more needful, since Christ is not only the central point of Christianity, but is Christianity itself—the embodied reconciliation and union between man and God. The following remarks are offered, not as fully explaining, but only as in some respects relieving, the difficulties of the problem.

Mat. 11: 27 — " No one knoveth the Son. save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son wiUeth to reveal him." Here it seems to be Intimated that the mystery of the nature of the Son is even greater than thut of the Father. Sliedd, Hist. Doct., 1 :408 — The Person of Christ is in some respects more baffling to reason than the Trinity. Yet there is a profane neglect, as wel 1 as a profane curiosity: Col. 1: 27 — " the riehes of the glory of this mystery ... which is Christ in yon the hope of glory "; 2:2 — " the mystery of God, eren Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden "; 1 Tim. 3 :16 — " great is the mystery of godliness; he who was manifested in the flesh " — here the Vulgate, the Latin Fathers, and Iiuttmann make >iuo-T>ipioithe antecedent of <k, the relative taking the natural gender of Its antecedent, and >iv<rT7jpioi. referring to Christ; Eeb. 2 :11 — " both he that sanctifleth and they that are sanctified are all of one [not father, but race ]" (cf. lets 17 : 26 — " he made of one every nation of men ")— an allusion to the solidarity of the race and Christ's participation In all that belongs to us.

John 17 : 3 — " this is Life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jems Christ"; 20 : 27 — "Reach hither thy finger, and see my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and put it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing "; Luke 24 : 39 — " See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me having "; Phil. 3:8,10 — "I count all things to bo loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord ... that I may know him "; 1 John 1:1 — " that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life."

The chief problems with regard to the person of Christ are: (1) one personality and two natures; (2) human nature without personality; (3) relation of the Logos to the humanity during the earthly life of Christ; (4) relation of the humanity to the Logos during the heavenly life of Christ. Luther said that we should need "new tongues" before wo could properly set forth this doctrine —particularly, a new language with regard to the nature of man.

(£>) Reason for myBtery.— The union of the two natures in Christ's person is necessarily inscrutable, because there are no analogies to it in our experience. Attempts to illustrate it on the one hand from the union and yet the distinctness of soul and body, of iron and heat, and on the other hand from the union and yet the distinctness of Christ and the believer, of the divine Son and the Father, are one-sided and become utterly misleading, if they are regarded as furnishing a rationale of the union and not simply a means of repelling objection. The first two illustrations mentioned above lack the essential element of two natures to make them complete : soul and body are not two natures, but one, nor are iron and heat two substances. The last two illustrations mentioned above lack the element of single personality: Christ and the believer are two persons, not one, even as the Son and the Father are not one person, but two.

The two illustrations most commonly employed are the union of soul and body, and the union of the believer with Christ. Each of these Illustrates one side of the great doctrine, but each must be complemented by the other. The former, taken by itself, would be Eutychian; the latter, taken by Itself, would be Nestorian. Like the doctrine of the Trinity, the Person of Christ Is an absolutely unique fact, for which we can find no complete analogies. See Blunt, Diet. Doct. and Hist. Theol., art.: Hypostasis: Sartorius, Person and Work of Christ, 27-05; Wilberforce, Incarnation, 39-77; Luthardt, Fund. Truths, 281-334.

(c) Ground of possibility.— The possibility of the union of deity and humanity in one person is grounded in the original creation of man in the divine image. Man's kinship to God, in other words, his possession of a rational and spiritual nature, is the condition of incarnation. Brute-life is incapable of union with God. But human nature is capable of the divine, in the sense not only that it lives, moves, and has its being in God, but that God may unite himself indissolubly to it and endue it with divine powers, while yet it remains all the more truly human. Since the moral image of God in human nature has been lost by sin, Christ, the perfect image of God after which man was originally made, restores that lost image by uniting himself to humanity and filling it with his divine life and love.

2 Pat. 1:4 — " partakers of the dirine nature." Creation and providence do not furnish the last limit of God's indwelling. Beyond these, there is the spiritual union between the believer and Christ, and even beyond this, there is the unity of God and man in the person of Jesus Christ. Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 : 283 (Syst. Doct., 3 :180) — " Humanity in Christ is related to divinity, as woman to man in marriage. It is receptive, but it is exalted by receiving:. Christ is the offspring' of the [ marriage] covenant between God and Israel."

Ib., 2 : 403-411 (Syst. Doct., 3 : 301-308) — " The question is: How can Christ be both Creator and creature? The Logos, as such, stands over against the creature as a distinct object. How can he become, and be, that which exists only as object of his activity and inworking? Can the cause become its own effect? The problem Is solved, only by remembering- that the divine and human, though distinct from each other, are not to be thought of as foreign to each other and mutually exclusive. The very thing that distinguishes them binds them together. Their essential distinction is that God has aseity, while man has simply dependence. 'Deep calleth unto deep' (Ps. 42 : 7) — the deep of the divine riches, and the deep of human poverty, call to each other. God's infinite resources and man's Infinite need, God's measureless supply and man's boundless receptivity, attract each other, until they unite in him in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. The mutual attraction is of an ethical sort, but the divine love has 'fait loved' (1 John 4 :19).

"The new second creation Is therefore not merely, like the first creation, one that distinguishes from God, — it is one that unites with God. Nature is diBtinct from God, yet God moves and works in nature. Much more does human nature And its only true reality, or realization, in union with God. God's uniting act does not violate or unmake it> but rather first causes it to be what, in God's Idea, it was meant to be." Incarnation is therefore the very fulfilment of the idea of humanity. The supernatural assumption of humanity is the most natural of all things. Man is not a mere tangent to God, but an empty vessel to be filled from the infinite fountain. NHtura humana in Christo capax divinie. See Talbot, in Bap. Quar., 1868: 128; Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, 270.

(d) No double personality. — This possession of two natures does not involve a double personality in the God-man, for the reason that the Logos takes into union with himself, not an individual man with already developed personality, but human nature which has had no separate existence before its union with the divine. Christ's human nature is impersonal, in the sense that it attains self-consciousness and self-determination only in the • personality of the God-man. Here it is important to mark the distinction between nature and person. Nature is substance possessed in common; the persons of the Trinity have one nature; there is a common nature of mankind. Person is nature separately subsisting, with powers of consciousness and will. Since the human nature of Christ has not and never had a separate subsistence, it is impersonal, and in the God-man the Logos furnishes the principle of personality. It is equally important to observe that self-consciousness and self-determination do not belong to nature as such, but only to personality. For this reason, Christ has not two consciousnesses and two wills, but a single consciousness and a single will. This consciousness and will, moreover, is never simply human, but is always theanthropic — an activity of the one personality which unites in itself the human and the divine (Mark 13 : 32; Luke 22 : 42).

The theory of two consciousnesses and two wills, first elaborated by John of Damascus, was an unwarranted addition to the Orthodox doctrine propounded at Chalcedon. Although the view of John of Damascus was sanctioned by the Council of Constantinople (681), "this Council has never been regarded by the Greek Church as ecumenical, and its composition and spirit deprive its decisions of all value as Indicating the true sense of Scripture"; see Ilruce, Humiliation of Christ, 90. Nature has consciousness and will, only as It is manifested in permn. The one person has a single consciousness and will, which embraces within its scope at all times a human nature, and sometimes a divine.

Sartorius uses the Illustration of two concentric circles: the one ego of personality in Christ is at the same time the centre of both circles, the human nature and the divine. Or, still better, illustrate by a smaller vessel of air Inverted and sunk, sometimes below its centre, sometimes above, in a far larger vessel of water. See Mark 13 : 32 — "Of that day or that hoar knoveth Do one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son ": Lake 22 : 42 — " Father, if thoa be Tilling, remove this cap from me: nevertheless not my will, bat thine, be done." To say that, although in his capacity as man he was ignorant, yet at that same moment in his capacity as God he was omniscient, is to accuse Christ of unveracity. Whenever Christ spoke, it was not one of the natures that spoke, but the person in whom both natures were united.

(e) Effect upon the human.—The union of the divine and the human natures makes the latter possessed of the powers belonging to the former; in other words, the attributes of the divine nature are imparted to the human without passing over into its essence — so that the human Christ even on earth had power to be, to know, and to do, as God. That this power was latent, or was only rarely manifested, was the result of the selfchosen state of humiliation upon which the God-man had entered. In this state of humiliation, the communication of the contents of his divine nature to the human was mediated by the Holy Spirit. The God-man, in his servant-form, knew and taught and performed only what the Spirit permitted and directed (Mat. 3 : 16; John 3 : 34; Acts 1 :2; 10 : 38; Heb. 9 :14). But when thus permitted, he knew, taught, and performed, not, like the prophets, by power communicated from without, but by virtue of his own inner divine energy (Mat. 17:2; Mark 5 : 41; Luke 5 : 20, 21; 6: 19; John 2 : 11, 24, 25; 3 : 13; 20 : 19).

Kahnis, Dogmatik, 2nd ed., 2:77 —"Human nature does not become divine, but(as Chemnitz has said) only the medium of the divine: as the moon has not a light of her own, but only shines in the light of the sun. So human nature; may derivatively exercise divine attributes, because it is united to the divine In one person."

Phillppi, Glaubenslehre, 4 :131 — " The union exalts the human, as light brightens the air, heat gives glow to the iron, spirit exalts the body, the Holy Spirit hallows the believer by union with his soul. Fire gives to Iron its own properties of lighting and burning; yet the Iron does not become lire. Soul gives to body its life-energy: yet the body does not become soul. The Holy Spirit sanctifies the believer, but the believer does not become divine; for the divine principle is the determining one. We do not speak of airy light, of iron heat, or of a bodily soul. So human nature possesses the divine only derivatively. In this sense it is imr destiny to become 'partaken of the divine nature' < 2 Pet. 1: +)." Even in his earthly life, when he wished to be, or more correctly, when the Spirit permitted, he was omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, could walk the sea, or pass through closed doors. But, in his state of humiliation, he was subject to the Holy Spirit.

In Mil 3 :16, the anointing of the Spirit at his baptism was not the descent of a material dove ("as a dove"). The dove-like appearance was only the outward sign of the coming forth of the Holy Spirit from the depths of his being and pouring itself like a flood into his divine-human consciousness. John 3 : 34 — " for he giveth not the Spirit bj measure"; leu 1:2—" efter thit he hid given commandment through the loir Ghost onto the ipostles "; 10 : 38 — "Jesus of Nazareth, how thit God anointed htm with the Holy Ghost uid with power: who went about doing good and healing ill thit were oppressed of the devil; for God wis with him "; Heb. 9 :14 — " the blood of Christ, who through the eterul Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God."

24,25 — " he knew all men he himself knew what was in man "; 3 :13 — " the Son of man, which is in heaven"

[here, however, Westcott and Hort, with K and B, omit i «» i» rj ovpary ]; 20 :19 — "when the doors were shut.... Jesus came and stood in the midst."

Christ is the "servant of Jehovah" (Is. 42:1-7; 49:1-12; 52:13; 53:12) and the meaning of trait <lets 3 :13. 26; 4 : 27, 30) Is not "child" or " Son"; it is "servant," as in the Revised Version. But, in the state of exaltation, Christ is the "Lord of the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3 :18 — Meyer), giving the Spirit (John 16 : 7 — " I will send him unto you " ). present in the Spirit (John 14 :18 — "I come unto yon "; Mat. 28 : 20 — " I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world " ), and working through the Spirit (1 Cor. 15 : 45 — " the last Idsffl became a life-giving spirit "; 2 Cor. 3 : 17 — " Now the Lord is the Spirit" ). On Christ's relation to the Holy Spirit, see John Owen, Works, 282-287; Kobins, in Bib. Sac, Oct., 1874 : 615; Wilberforce, Incarnation, 208-341.

(/) Effect upon the divine. —This communion of the natures was such that, although the divine nature in itself is incapable of ignorance, weakness, temptation, suffering, or death, the one person Jesus Christ was capable of these by virtue of the union of the divine nature with a human nature in him. As the human Savior can exercise divine attributes, not in virtue of his humanity alone, but derivatively, by virtue of his possession of a divine nature, so the divine Savior can suffer and be ignorant as man, not in his divine nature, but derivatively, by virtue of his possession of a human nature. We may illustrate this from the connection between body and soul. The soul suffers pain from its union with the body, of which apart from the body it would be incapable. So the God-man, although in his divine nature impassible, was capable, through his union with humanity, of absolutely infinite suffering.

Just as my soul could never suffer the pains of fire if It were only soul, but can suffer those pains in union with the body, so the otherwise impassible God can suffer mortal pangs through his union with humanity, which he never could suffer if he had not joined himself to my nature. The union between the humanity and the deity is so close, that deity itself is brought under the curse and penalty of the law. Because Christ was God, did he pass unscorched through the fires of Gethsemane and Calvary? Rather let us say, because Christ was God, he underwent a suffering that was absolutely infinite. Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 4 : 300 «/.; Lawrence, in Bib. Sac, 24 : 41; Schiiberleln, in Jahrbuch ftlr deutsche Theologie, 1871 : 439-501.

(g) Necessity of the union. —The union of two natures in one person is necessary to constitute Jesus Christ a proper mediator between man and God. His two-fold nature gives him fellowship with both parties, since it involves an equal dignity with God, and at the same time a perfect sympathy with man (Heb. 2 : 17, 18; 4 : 15, 16). This two-fold nature, moreover, enables him to present to both God and man proper terms of reconciliation: being man, he can make atonement for man; being God, his atonement has infinite value; while both his divinity and his humanity combine to move the hearts of offenders and constrain them to submission and love (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 7 : 25).

Heb. 2 :17,18 — " Wherefore it behoved him in all things to bo made like onto his brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people, For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to sneeor them that are tempted "; 4:15,16—"For we have not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, jet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need "; 1 Tim. 2:5 — "One God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus "; leb. 7 : 25 — " Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."

Because Christ is man, he can make atonement for man and can sympathize with man. Because Christ is God, his atonement has Infinite value, and the union which he effects with God is complete. A merely human 8avior could never reconcile or reunite us to God. But a divine-human Savior meets all our needs. See Wilberforee, Incarnation, 170-208.

(h) The union eternal. — The union of humanity with deity in the person of Christ is indissoluble and eternal. Unlike the avatars of the East, the incarnation was a permanent assumption of human nature by the second person of the Trinity. In the ascension of Christ, glorified humanity has attained the throne of the universe. By his Spirit, this same divinehuman Savior is omnipresent to secure the progress of his kingdom. The final subjection of the Son to the Father, alluded to in 1 Cor. 15 : 28, cannot be other than the complete return of the Son to his original relation to the Father; since, according to John 17 : 5, Christ is again to possess the glory which he had with the Father before the world was ( cf. Heb. 1 : 8; 7 : 24, 25).

1 Cor. 15 : 28 — " And when all things have been subjected nnto him, then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all"; John 17 : 5 — "0 Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was"; Heb. 1: 8 — "of the Son he saith, Thy throne, 0 God, is forever and ever"; 7:24 — "he, because he abideth forever, hath his priesthood unchangeable." Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 :281-283 < Syst. Doct., 3 :177-179), holds that there Js a present and relative distinction between the Son's will, as mediator, and that of the Father (Mat. 26 : 39 — " not as I will, but as thou wilt") — a distinction which shall cease when Christ becomes Judge (John 16 : 26 — "in that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you "). If Christ's reigii ceased, he would be inferior to the saints, who are themselves to reign. But they are to reign only in and with Christ, their head.

The best illustration of the possible meaning of Christ's giving up the kingdom is found In the Governor of the East India Company giving up his authority to the Queen and merging it in that of the home government, he himself, however, at the same time becoming Secretary of State for India. So Christ will give up his vicegerency, but not his mediator8hlp. Now he reigns by delegated authority; then ho will reign In union with the Father.

Melancthon: "Christ will finish his work as Mediator, and then will reign as God, immediately revealing to us the Deity." Quenstedt, quoted In Schmld, Dogmatik, 283, thinks the giving up of the kingdom will be only an exchange of outward administration for Inward — not a surrender of all power and authority, but only of one mode of exercising it. Hanna, on Resurrection, lcct. 4— " It is not a giving up of his mediatorial authority— that throne is to endure forever —but it is a simple public recognition of the fact that God fs all In all, that Christ Is God's medium of accomplishing all." An. Par. Bible, on 1 Cor. 15 : 28 — " Not his mediatorial relation to his own people shall be given up; much less his personal relation to the Godhead, as the divine Word; but only his mediatorial relation to the world at large." See also Edwards, Observations on the Trinity, 85 scj.

Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 : 402 (Syst. Doct., 3:297-299) — " We are not to imagine incarnations of Christ in the angel-world, or in other spheres. This would make incarnation

We may dismiss, as unworthy of serious notice, the views that it consisted essentially either in the union of the Logos with human nature,— for this union with human nature continues in the state of exaltation; or in the outward trials and privations of Christ's human life,— for this view casts reproach upon poverty, and ignores the power of the soul to rise superior to its outward circumstances.

We may devote more attention to the

A. Theory of Thomasius, Delitzsch, and Crosby, that the humiliation consisted in the surrender of the relative divine attributes.

This theory holds that the Logos, although retaining his divine self-consciousness and his immanent attributes of holiness, love, and truth, surrendered his relative attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, in order to take to himself veritable human nature. According to this view, there are, indeed, two natures in Christ, but neither of these natures is infinite. Thomasius and Delitzsch are the chief advocates of this theory in Germany. Dr. Howard Crosby has maintained a similar view in America.

The theory of Thomasius, Delitzsch, and Crosby has !>een, though Improperly, called the theory of the Kenosis ( from iitivuvtv—"emptied himself"—in Phil. 2:7), and its advocates are often called Kenotic theologians. There is a Kenosis of the Logos, but it is of a different sort from that which this theory supposes. For statements of this theory, see Thomasius, Christl Person und Werk,2 : 233-235, 542-550; Delitzsch, Biblische Psychologic, 323333: Howard Crosby, in Bap. Quar., 1870 : 350-363—a discourse subsequently published in a separate volume, with the title: The True Humanity of Christ, and reviewed by Shedd, in Presb. Rev., April, 1881 : 429-431. Crosby emphasizes the word "became,' in John 1: 14—"and the Word became flesh"—and gives the word "flesh" the sense of "man," or" human." Crosby, then, should logically deny, though he does not deny, that Christ's body was derived from the Virgin.

We object to this view that:

(a) It contradicts the Scriptures already referred to, in which Christ asserts his divine knowledge and power. Divinity, it is said, can give up its world-functions, for it existed without these before creation. But to give up divine attributes is to give up the substance of Godhead. Nor is it a sufficient reply to say that only the relative attributes are given up, while the immanent attributes, which chiefly characterize the Godhead, are retained; for the immanent necessarily involve the relative, as the greater involve the less.

Liebner, Jahrbuch f. d. Theol., 3 :349-356—" Is the Logos here? But wherein does heshow his presence, that It may be known?" Hast', Hutterus Kedivlvus, 11th ed., 217, note.

(b) Since the Logos, in uniting himself to a human soul, reduces himself to the condition and limitations of a human soul, the theory is virtually a theory of the coexistence of two human souls in Christ. But the union of two finite souls is more difficult to explain than the union of a finite and an infinite,—since there can be in the former case no intelligent guidance and control of the human element by the divine.

Dorner, Jahrbuch f. d. Theol., 1: 397-408-"The impossibility of making two finite souls into one finally drove Arianism to the denial of any human soul in Christ" (Apollinarianism). This statement of Dorner, which we have already quoted in our account of Apollinarianism, illustrates the similar impossibility, upon the theory of Thomasius, of constructing out of two finite souls the person of Christ. See also Hovey, God with Us, 68.

(c) This theory fails to secure ite end, that of making comprehensible the human development of Jesus,—for even though divested of the relative attributes of Godhood, the Logos still retains his divine self-consciousness, together with his immanent attributes of holiness, love, and truth. This is as difficult to reconcile with a purely natural human development as the possession of the relative divine attributes would be. The theory logically leads to a further denial of the possession of any divine attributes, or of any divine consciousness at all, on the part of Christ, and merges itself in the view of Gess and Beecher, that the Godhead of the Logos is actually transformed into a human soul.

Kahnis. Dogmatik, 3 : 343—" The old theology conceived of Christ as in full and unbroken use of the divine self-consciousness, the divine attributes, and the divine worldfunctions, from the conception until death. Though Jesus, as foetus, child, boy, was not almighty and omnipresent according to his human nature, yet he was so, as to his divine nature, which constituted one egti with his human. Thomasius, however, declared that the Logos gave up his relative attributes, during his sojourn In flesh. Dorner's objection to this, on the ground of the divine uncbangcablcness, overshoots the mark, because it makes any becoming impossible.

"But some things in Thomasius' doctrine are still difficult: 1st, divinity can certainly give up Its world-functions, for It has existed without these before the world was. In the nature of an absolute personality, however, lies an absolute knowing, willing, feeling, whieli it cannot give up. Hence Phil. 2: 5-11 speaks of a givlng-up of divine glory- hut not of a glving-up of divine attributes or nature. 2nd, little is gained by such an assumption of the giving up of relative attributes, since the Logos, even while divested of a part of his attributes, still has full possession of his divine self-consciousness, which must make a purely human development no less difficult. 3rd, the expressions of divine self-consciousness, the works of divine power, the words of divine wisdom, prove that Jesus was in possession of his divine self-consciousness and attributes.

"The essential thing which the Kenotics aim at, however, stands fast; namely, that the divine personality of the Logos divested itself of its glory (John 17: 5), riches (2 Cor. 8:6), divine form (Phil. 2:6). This divesting is the becoming man. The humiliation, then, was a glving-up of the use, not of the possession, of the divine nature and attributes. That man can thus give up self-consciousness and powers, we see every day in sleep. But man does not, thereby, cease to be man. So we maintain thnt the Logos, when he became man, did not divest himself of his divine person and nature, which was impossible; but only divested himself of the use and exercise of these—these being latent In him—in order to unfold themselves to use In the measure to which his human nature developed Itself—a use which found Its completion In the condition of exaltation." This statement of Kahnis, although approaching correctness, is still neither quite correct nor quite complete.

B. Theory that the humiliation consisted in the surrender of the independent exercise of the divine attributes.

This theory, which we regard as the most satisfactory of all, may be more fully set forth as follows. The humiliation, as the Scriptures seem to show, consisted:

(a) In that aot of the preexistent Logos by which he gave up his divine glory with the Father, in order to take a servant form. In this act, he resigned not the possession, nor yet entirely the use, but rather the independent exercise, of the divine attributes.

John 17 :5—" Glorify thou me with thine own self with the glorj which I bad with thee before the world wu "; Phil. 2 : 6, 7—" who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on tn equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men "; 2 Cor. 8 : 9—" For je know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, jet for jour sakes he became poor, that je through his poverty might become rich."

(b) In the submission of the Logos to the control of the Holy Spirit and

the limitations of his Messianic mission, in his communication of the divine

fulness to the human nature which he had taken into union with himself.

lets 1 : 2—Jesus, "after that he had given commandment through the Holj Ghost unto the apostles whom he had chosen "; 10 : 38—" Jesus of Nazareth, how that God anointed him with the Holj Ghost and with power "; leb. 9 :14 —" the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God."

(c) In the continuous surrender, on the part of the God-man, so far as his human nature was concerned, of the exercise of those divine powers with which it was endowed by virtue of its union with the divine, and in the voluntary acceptance, which followed upon this, of temptation, suffering, and death.

Mai, 26 : 53—" Thinkest thou that I cannot beseech my Father, and he shall even now send me more than twelve legions of angels " ; John 10 :17, 18—" Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again "; Phil. 2 : 8—"and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross."

Each of these elements of the doctrine has its own Scriptural support. We must therefore regard the humiliation of Christ, not as consisting in a single act, but as involving a continuous self-renunciation, which began with the Kenosis of the Logos in becoming man, and which culminated in the self-subjection of the God-man to the death of the cross.

Our doctrine of Christ's humiliation will be better understood, if we put it midway between two pairs of erroneous views, making It the third of Ave. The list would be as follows: (1) Gess: The Logos gave up all divine attributes; (2) Thomasius: The Logos gave up relative attributes only; (3) True View: The Logos gave up the Independent exercise of divine attributes; (4) Old Orthodoxy: Christ gave up the use of divine attributes; (5) Anseltn: Christ acted as if he did not possess divine attributes. The full exposition of the classical passage with reference to the humiliation, namely, Phil. 2: 5-9, we give below, under the next paragraph.

2. The stages of Christ's humiliation.

We may distinguish: (a) That a«t of the pre'incarnate Logos by which, in becoming man, he gave up the independent exercise of the divine attributes. (6) His submission to the common laws which regulate the origin of souls from a preexisting sinful stock, in taking his human nature from the virgin—a human nature which only the miraculous conception rendered pure, (c) His subjection to the limitations involved in a human growth and development—reaching the consciousness of his sonship at his twelfth year, and working no miracles till after the baptism, (d) The subordination of himself, in state, knowledge, teaching, and acts, to the control of the Holy Spirit—so living, not independently, but as a servant, (e) His subjection, as connected with a sinful race, to temptation and suffering, and finally to the death which constituted the penalty of the law.

Peter Lombard asked whether God could know more than he was aware of? It Is only another way of putting the question whether, during the earthly life of Christ, the Log-os existed outside of the flesh of Jesus. We must answer in the affirmative. Otherwise the number of the persons in the Trinity would be variable, and the universe could do without him who is ever "upholding all thing! bj the word of his powsr" (Hsb. 1:3), and in whom "•11 things consist" (Col. 1:17). Let us recall the nature of God's omnipresence (see pages 132, 133). Omnipresence is nothing less than the presence of the whole of God in every place. From this it follows, that the whole Christ can be present in every believer as fully as if that believer were the only one to receive of his fulness, and that the whole Logos can be united to and be present in the man Christ Jesus, while at the same time he fills and governs the universe. By virtue of this omnipresence, therefore, the whole Logos can suffer on earth, while yet the whole Logos reigns in heaven. The Logos outside of Christ has the perpetual consciousness of his Godhead, while yet the Logos, as united to humanity in Christ, Is subject to ignorance, weakness, and death.

How the Independent exercise of the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence can be surrendered, even for a time, would be inconceivable, if we were regarding the Logos as he is in himself, seated upon the throne of the universe. The matter is somewhat easier, when we remember that it was not the Logos jier sc, but rather the God-man, Christ Jesus, in whom the Logos submitted to this humiliation. South, Sermons, 2 : »—"Be the fountain never so full, yet if it communicate Itself by a little pipe, the stream can be but small and inconsiderable, and equal to the measure of its conveyance." Sartorius, Person and Work of Christ, 39—"The human eye, when open, sees heaven and earth; but when shut, it sees little or nothing. Yet its inherent capacity docs not change. So divinity does not change its nature, when it drops the curtain of humanity before the eyes of the God-man."

The divine in Christ, during most of his earthly life, is latent, or only now and then present to his consciousness, or manifested to others. Illustrate from second childhood, where the mind itself exists, but is not capable of use; or from first childhood, where even a Newton or a Humboldt, if brought back to earth and made to occupy an Infant body and brain, would develop as an infant, with infantile powers. There Is more in memory than we can at this moment recall — memory is greater than recollection. There is more of us at all times than we know — only the sudden emergency reveals the largeness of our resources of mind and heart and will. The new nature, in the regenerate, is greater than it appears: "Beloved, now in we children of God, snd it is not ret made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him " (1 John 3:2). So in Christ there was an oceanlike fulness of resource, of which only now and then the Spirit permitted the consciousness and the exercise.

Without denying (with Dorner) the completeness, even from the moment of the conception, of the union between the deity and the humanity, we may still say with Kahnls: "The human nature of Christ, according to the measure of its development, appropriates more and more to its conscious use the latent fulness of the divine nature." So we take the middle ground between two opposite extremes. On the one hand, the Kenosis was not the extinction of the Logos. Nor, on the other hand, did Christ hunger and sleep by miracle —this is Docetism. We must not minimize Christ's humiliation, for this was his glory. There was no limit to his descent, except that arising from his sinleseness. His humiliation was not merely the glving-up of the appearance of Godhead. Balrd, Elohim Revealed, 585—"Should any one aim to celebrate the condescension of the emperor Charles the Fifth, by dwelling on the fact that he laid aside the robes of royalty and assumed the style of a subject, and altogether ignore the more important matter that he actually became a privute person, it would be very weak and absurd." Inasmuch, however, as the passage Phil. 2: 6-8 Is the chief basis and support of the doctrine of Christ's humiliation, we here subjoin a more detailed examination of it.

Exposition Of Philippians, 2:5-A. The passage reads: "Who, existing in the form of God, wonted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross."

The subject of the sentence is at first (verses 6. 7) Christ Jesus, regarded as the pregxistent Logos; subsequently (Terse 8), this same Christ Jesus, regarded as incarnate. This change in the subject is indicated by the contrast between M°pd>ri itTM! ( Terse 6) and portii? iovlov (Terse 7), as well as by the participles AaSuik and ycvdfitrof (Terse 7) and <i>ped«'c (Terse 8). It is asserted, then, that the prcSxlstent Logos, "although subsisting lu the form of God, did not regard his equality with God as a thing to be forcibly retained, but emptied himself by hiking the form of a servant, (that Is,) by being made In the likeness of men. And being found In outward condition as a man, he (the incarnate Son of God, yet further) humbled himself, by becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Terse 8).

Here notice that what the Logos divested himself of, in becoming man, is not the substance of his (iodhead, but the "form of God" in which this substance was manifested. This "form of God" can be only that independent exercise of the powers and prerogatives of Deity which constitutes his "equality with God." This he surrenders, in the act of "taking the form of a sonant"—or becoming subordinate, as man. ( Here other Scriptures complete the view, by their representations of the controlling influence of the Holy Spirit in the earthly life of Christ.) The phrases "made in the likeness of men" and "found in fashion as a man" are used to Intimate, not that Jesus Christ was not really man, but that he was God as well as man, and therefore free from the sin which clings to man (cf. Horn. 8: 3 — iv 6pouu*iari o-ap«bf a/iapi-ia? — Meyer). Finally, this one person, now God and man united, submits himself, consciously and voluntarily, to the humiliation of an ignominious death.

See Lightfoot on PhiL 2:8—" Christ divested himself, not of his divine nature, for that was impossible, but of the glories and prerogatives of deity. This lie did by taking the form of a servant." Evans, in Presb. Rev., 1883: 28"—" Two stages In Christ's humiliation, each represented by a finite verb defining the central act of the particular stage, accompanied by two modal participles. 1st stage indicated in T. 7. Its central act is: 'He emptied himself.' Its two modalities are: (1) 1 taking the form of servant'; (2) 'being made in the likeness of men.' Here we have the humiliation of the Kenosis,—that by which Christ Itecamc man. 2nd stage, indicated in T. 8. Its central act Is: 'He humbled himself.' Its two modalities are: (1) 'being found in fashion as a man'; (2) 'becoming obedient unto death, Tea, the death of the cross.' Here wo have the humiliation of his obedience and death,—that by which, fn humanity, he became a sacrifice for our sins."

Meyer refers tph. 5:31 exclusively to Christ and the church, making the completed union future, however, t. c, at the time of the Parousia. "For this cause shall a man leaTe his father and mother " = " in the incarnation, Christ leaves father and mother (his seat at the right hand of God), and cleaves to his wife (the church),andthon the two (the descended Christ and the church i become one flesh (one ethical person, as the married pair become one by physical union). The Fathers, however (Jerome, Theodoret, Chryso8tom), referred it to the incarnation." On the interpretation of Phil. 2: 6-11, see Comm. of Neander, Meyer, Lange, Ellicott.

On the general subject of the Kenosis of the Logos, see Bruce, Humiliation of Christ; Robins, in Bib. Sac, Oct.. 1874 : 615; Philippl, Glaubenslehre, 4 :138-150. 388-475; Pope, Person of Christ, 23; Bodemcyer, Lehre von der Kenosis; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2 : 610-625. On the question whether Christ would have become man, had there been no sin, see Julius MUller, Dogmat. Abhandlungen, 66-126; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 512-526, 543558.

LT. The State Of Exaltation. I. The nature of this exaltation.

It consisted essentially in: (a) A resumption, on the part of the Logos, of his independent exercise of divine attributes. (6) The withdrawal, on the part of the Logos, of all limitations in his communication of the divine fulness to the human nature of Christ, (c) The corresponding exercise, on the part of the human nature, of those powers which belonged to it by virtue of its union with the divine.

The eighth Psalm, with its account of the glory of human nature, is at present fulfilled only in Christ {see Heb. 2:8 —"but we bebold Jesus"). Heb. 2:7 — jjAarTuxray avrbv

Spagv Ti nap iyyAovt — may be translated, as In the margin of the Kev. Vers., "Thou madest him for a little white lower than the angels." Christ's human body was not necessarily subject to death; only by outward compulsion or voluntary surrender could he die. Hence resurrection was a natural necessity (Acts 2 : 23 — " whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it"; 31 — "neither was he left in Hades, nor did bis flesh see corruption "). This exaltation, which then affected humanity only in its head, is to be the experience also of the members. Our bodies also are to be delivered from the bondage of corruption, and we are to sit with Christ upon his throne.

2. The stages of Christ's exaltation, (a) The quickening and resurrection.

Both Lutherans and Bomanists distinguish between these two, making the former precede, and the latter follow, Christ's "preaching to the spirits in prison." These views rest upon a misinterpretation of 1 Pet. 3 : 18-20. Lutherans teach that Christ descended into hell, to proclaim his triumph to ■evil spirits. But this is to give Ufipvfev the unusual sense of proclaiming his triumph, instead of his gospel. Bomanists teach that Christ entered the underworld to preach to Old Testament saints, that they might be saved. But the passage speaks only of the disobedient; it cannot be pressed into the support of a sacramental theory of the salvation of Old Testament believers. The passage does not assert a descent of Christ into the world of spirits, but only a work of the pre'iucarnate Logos in offering salvation, through Noah, to the world then about to perish.

Calvin taught that Christ descended Into the underworld and suffered the pains of the lost. But not all Calvinists hoM with him here; see Princeton Essays, 1 :158. Meyer, on Rom. 10 : 7, regards the question—" who shall descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring up Christ from the dead)"—as an allusion to, and so indirectly a proof-text for, Christ's descent into the underworld.

Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 3 : 662 (Syst. Doct., -t: 127), thinks " Christ's descent into Hades marks a new era of his pneumatic life, in which he shows himself free from the limitations of time and space." He rejects u Luther's notion of a merely triumphal progress and proclamation of Christ. Before Christ," ho says, "there was no abode peopled by the damned. The descent was an application of the benefit of the atonement (Implied in loipiiiro-fik). The work was prophetic, not high-priestly nor kingly. Going to the spirits in prison is spoken of as a spontaneous act, not one of physical necessity. No power of Hades led him over into Hades. Deliverance from the limitations of a mortal body is already an Indication of a higher stage of existence. Christ's soul is bodiless for a time — wi-eO^a only — as the departed were.

"The ceasing of this preaching is neither recorded, nor reasonably to be supposed —indeed the ancient church supposed it carried on through the apostles. It expresses the universal significance of Christ for former generations and for the entire kingdom of the dead. No physical power is a limit to him. The gates of hell, or Hades, shall not prevail over or against him. The intermediate state is one of blessedness for him, and he can admit the penitent thief into it. Even those who were not laid hold of by Christ's historic manifestation in this earthly life still must, and may, be brought Into relation with him, in order to be able to accept or to reject him. And thus the universal relation of Christ to humanity and the absoluteness of the Christian religion are confirmed." So Dorner, for substance.

All this versus Strauss, who thought that the dying of vast masses of men, before and after Christ, who had not been brought into relation to Christ, proves that the Christian religion is not necessary to salvation, because not universal. For advocacy of Christ's preaching to the dead, see also Jahrhuch f llr d. Theol., 23 :177-228; W. W. Pattern, in N. Eng., July, 1882 : 400-478; John Miller, Problems suggested by the Bible, part 1: 93-98; part 2 : 38; Pluinptre, The Spirits InaPrison.

For the opposite view, see "No Preaching to the Dead," in Princeton Rev., March. 1875 : 197; 1878 : 451-491; Hovey, in Rap. Quar., 4 : 486 sq.; Love, Christ's Preaching to the Spirits in Prison; Cowlcs, in Hlb. Sac, 1875 :401; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:618-622; Salmond, in Popular Commentary, in loco. So Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Bishop Pearson. See also Wright, Relation of Death to Probation, 22-28 —"If Christ preached to spirits In Hades, it may liHve l>ecn to demonstrate the Itoiieltmiiam of adding In the other world to the privileges enjoyed in this. We do not read that it had any favorable effect upon the hearers. If men will not hear Moses and the Prophets, then they will not hear one risen from the dead. 'To day thou shalt be with me in Paradise * was not comforting, if Christ was going that day to the realm of lost spirits. The antediluvians, however, were specially favored with Noah's preaching, and were specially wicked."

For full statement of the view presented in the text, that the preaching referred to was the preaching of Christ as preexisting Logos to the spirits, now In prison, when once they were disobedient in the days of Noah, see Bartlett, in New Englander, Oct., 1872 : flul and in Bib. Sac, Apr., 1883 : 333-373. Before giving the substance of Bartlett's exposition, we transcribe in full the passage In question, 1 Pet. 3 :18-20 — " Statue Christ also suffered for sins Oqm, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit; in which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were disobedient, when the longsuffenng of God waited in the days of Noah."

Bartlett expounds as follows: "'In which' (wrtiium, divine nature) 'he went and preached to the spirits in prison when once the; disobeyed.' air<idf)cao-ii> Is circumstantial aorist, indicating the time of the preaching as a definite past. It is an anarthous dative, as in Luke 8:27; Mat. 8: 23; lets 15: 25; 22:17. It is an appositive, or predicative, participle. [That the aorist participle does not necessarily describe an action preliminary to that of the principal verb, appears from its use in Terse 18 (oWar»*«n), in 1 Thess. 1: 6 ({<£«,.. . r,.), and in ColI: It IS]. The connection of thought is: Peter exhorts his readers to endure suffering bravely, because Christ did so —in his lower nature being put to dentil, in his higher nature enduring the opposition of sinners before the flood. Sinners of that time only are mentioned, because this permits an introduction of the subsequent reference to baptism. Cf. Gen. 6: 3; 1 Pet. 1:10,11; 2 Pet, 2 : 4, 5."

(6) The ascension and sitting at the right hand of God.

As the resurrection proclaimed Christ to men as the perfected and glorified man, the conqueror of sin and lord of death, the ascension proclaimed lum to the universe as the reinstated God, the possessor of universal dominion, the omnipresent object of worship and hearer of prayer. Dextra Dei ubique est.

Mat. 28 :18, 20 — " 111 authority hath been given unto me in heaves and on earth lo, I am with you alway,

even unto the end of the world "; Hark 16 :19 — "So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken unto them, was received up into heaven, and sat down on the right hand of God "; acts 7 : 55 — " But he, being foil of the Holy Ghost, looked np stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God "; 2 Cor. 13 : 4 — "he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth through the power of God "; Kph. 1:22, 23 — " he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is bis body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all"; 4 :10 — " He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.'' Philippl, Olaubenslehre, 4 :184-189 —" Before the resurrection, Christ was the God-mnn; since the resurrection, he is the Gwl-man He ate with his disciples, not to show the quality, but the reality, of his human body." Nicoll, Life of Christ: "It was hard for Elijah to ascend" — it required chariot and horses of lire —"but it was easier for Christ to ascend, than to descend " — there was a gravitation upwards.

We are compelled here to consider the problem of the relation of the humanity to the Logos in the state of exaltation. The Lutherans maintain the ubiquity of Christ's human body, and they make it the basis of their doctrine of the sacraments. Dorner, Olaubenslehre, 2 : 874-676 ( Syst. Doct., 4 :138-1421, holds to "a presence, not simply of the Logos, but of the whole God-man, with all his people, but not necessarily likewise a similar presence in the world; in other words, his presence is morally conditioned by men's receptivity." The old theologians said that Christ is not in heaven. qnaH carctrc. Calvin, Institutes, 2 : 15 —he Is "incarnate, but not incarcerated." He has gone into

heaven, the place of spirits, and he manifests himself there; but he has also gone far above all heavens, that he may fill all thing:*- He is with his people alway. All power Is given into his hand. The church is the fulness of him that fllleth all in all. So the Acts of the Apostles speak constantly of the Son of man, of the man Jesus as God, ever present, the object of worship, seated at the right hand of God, having all the powers and prerogatives of Deity.

Who and what is this Christ, who is present with his people when they pray? It is not enough to say, He Is simply the Holy Spirit; for the Holy Spirit is the "Spirit of Christ" (Rom. 8:9), and In having the Holy Spirit we have Christ himself (John 16:7 —"I will send him [ the Comforter ] unto you"; 14:18—"I como unto jou"). The Christ, who is thus present with us when we pray, is not simply the Logos, or the divine nature of Christ — his humanity being separated from the divinity and being localized in heaven. This would be inconsistent with his promise "Lo, I am with jou." in which the "I" that spoke was not simply Deity, but Deity and humanity inseparably united; and It would deny the real and Indissoluble union of the two natures. The elder brother and sympathizing Savior who is with us when we pray is man, as well as God. This manhood is therefore ubiquitous by virtue of its union with the Godhead.

But this is not to say that Christ's human hotly is everywhere present. It would seem that body must exist In spatial relations, and be confined to place. We do not know that this Is so with regard to soul. Heaven would seem to be a place, because Christ's body is there; and a spiritual body is not a body which is spirit, but a body which Is suited to the uses of the spirit. But even though Christ may manifest himself, in a glorified human body, only in heaven, his human soul, by virtue of Its union with the divine nature, can at the same moment be with all bis scattered people over the whole earth. As, In the days of his flesh, bis humanity was confined to place, while as to his Deity he could speak of the Son of man which is in heaven, so now, although bis human body may be confined to place, his human soul Is ubiquitous. Humanity can exist without body; for during the three days in the sepulchre, Christ's body was on earth, but his soul was in the ot her world; and in like manner there is, during the Intermediate state, a separation of the soul and the body of believers. But humanity cannot exist without soul; and if the human Savior is with us, then his humanity, at least so far as respects its immaterial part, must be everywhere present. Since Christ's human nature has derivatively become possessed of divine attributes, there is no validity in the notion of a progrcsslveness in that nature, now that it has ascended to the right hand of God. See Fhllippi, Glaubenslehre, 4 :131; Van Oostcrzee, Dogmatics, 558, 576.

SECTION IV.—THE OFFICES OF CHRIST.

The Scriptures represent Christ's offices as three in number, — prophetic, priestly, and kingly. Although these terms are derived from concrete human relations, they express perfectly distinct ideas. The prophet, the priest, and the king, of the Old Testament, were detached but designed prefigurations of him who should combine all these various activities in himself, and should furnish the ideal reality, of which they were the imperfect symbols.

1 Cor. 1: 30 — " of him am To in Christ Jesus, who was mads onto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctifleation and redemption.'' Here "wisdom" seems to indicate the prophetic, "righteousness" (or "justification " ) the priestly, and "sanctifioation and redemption" the kingly work of Christ. Denovan; "Three offices are necessary. Christ must be a prophet, to save us from the ignorance of sin; a priest, to save us from its guilt; a king, to save us from its dominion in our flesh. Our faith cannot have firm basis in any one of these alone, any more than a stool can stand on less than three legs." See Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 583-586; Archer Butler, Sermons, 1:314. ~~——*

I. The Prophetic Office Of Chbist.

1. The nature of Christ's prophetic, work.

(a) Here we must avoid the narrow interpretation which would make the prophet a mere foreteller of future events. He was rather an inspired interpreter or revealer of the divine will, a medium of communication between God and men (xpoc^-r/f = not foreteller, but forteller, or forthteller. Cf. Gen. 20 : 7, —of Abraham; Ps. 105 : 15,—of the patriarchs; Mat. 11 : 9,

Gen. 20 : 7 —"Restore tie mans wife; for he is a prophet" —spoken of Abraham; Ps. 105 :15 — "Touch not mine anointed ones, and do my prophets no harm" —spoken of the patriarchs; Mat. 11: 9— "Bet Therefore vent je out? to see a prophet? Tea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet" — spoken of John the Baptist, from whom we have no recorded predictions, and whose pointing to Jesus as the "Lamb of God" (John 1:29) was apparently but an echo of Isaiah 53. 1 Cor. 12 : 28 — "first apostles, secondly prophets "; Eph. 2 : 20 — " built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets "; 3:5

— "revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit" — all these latter texts speaking: of New Testament expounders of Scripture.

Any organ of divine revelation, or medium of divine communication, Is a prophet. "Hence," says Philippi, "thebooks of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings are called 'Prnphetrc primes,' or 'the earlier prophets.' Bernard's Resplce, Anpice, Proxpice describes the work of the prophet; for the prophet might see and might disclose things in the past, things in the present, or things in the future. Daniel was a prophet, in telling Nebuchadnezzar what his dream had been, as well as in telling its interpretation <Dan. 2 : 28, 36). The woman of Samaria rightly called Christ a prophet, when he told her all things that ever she did (John 4 : 29)." On the work of the prophet, see Stanley, Jewish Church, 1 :481.

(b) The prophet commonly united three methods of fulfilling his office,

— those of teaching, predicting, and miracle-working. In all these respects, Jesus Christ did the work of a prophet (Deut. 18 : 15; cf. Acts 3 : 22. Mat. 13 : 57; Luke 13 : 33; John 6 : 14). He taught (Mat. 5-7), he uttered predictions (Mat. 24 and 25 ), he wrought miracles (Mat. 8 and 9), while in his person, his life, his work, and his death, he revealed the Father (John 8 : 26; 14 : 9; 17 : 8).

Deut 18 :15 — " The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet, from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him shall ye hearken "; cf. Acts 3 : 22 — where this prophecy Is said to be fulfilled in Christ. Jesus calls himself a prophet in Mat 13 : 56 —" A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house "; Luke 13 : 33 — " Howbeit I must go on my way to-day and to-morrow and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem." He was called a prophet: "When therefore the people saw the sign which he did, they said, This is of a truth the prophet that cometh into the world." John 8 : 26 — "the things which 1 heard from him [ the Father], these speak I unto the world"; 14:9 — "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father ": 17 : 8 — " the words which thou gavest me, I have given unto them."

Denovan: "Christ teaches us by his word, his Spirit, his example." Christ's miracles were mainly miracles of healing. "Only sickness is contagious with us. But Christ was an example of perfect health, and his health was contagious. By its overflow, he healed others. Only a 'touch' (Mat. 9: 21) was necessary."

2. The stages of Christ's prophetic work. These are four, namely:

[a) The preparatory work of the Logos, in enlightening mankind before the time of Christ's advent in the flesh. — All preliminary religious knowledge, whether within or without the bounds of the chosen people, is from Christ, the revealer of God.

Christ's prophetfc work began before he came in the flesh. John 1:9 — " There was the tra» light, even th* light which lighteth every man. coming into the world " = all the natural light of conscience, science, philosophy, art, civilization, is the llghtof Christ. Tennyson: " Our little systems have their day. They have their day and cease to be; They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they." Heb. 12 : 24, 26 — " See that je refine

not him that speaketh whose voice then [ at Sinai ] shook the earth: bat now he hath promised, saying, Yet

once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, bnt also the heaven "; Lake 11: 49 — " Therefore said the wisdom of God, I will send ante them prophets and apostles "; cf. Mat. 23 : 34 — " behold, I send nnto jon prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall yo kill and crucify"— which shows that Jesus was referring to his own teachings, as well as to those of the earlier prophets. a

(6) The earthly ministry of Christ incarnate. —In his earthly ministry, Christ showed himself the prophet par excellence. While he submitted, like the Old Testament prophets, to the direction of the Holy Spirit, unlike them, he found the sources of all knowledge and power within himself. The word of God did not come to him — he was himself the Word.

Luke 6 :19 — " And all the multitude sought to touch him: for power came forth from him, and healed them all"; John 2 :11 — " This beginning of bis signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his glory "; 8 : 38, 58 — "I

speak of the things which I have seen with my Father Before Abraham was born, I am"; cf. Jer. 2:1 — " the

word of the Lord came to me"; John 1:1 — "In the beginning was the Word." Hat. 26 : 53 — "twelve legions of angels"; John 10 :18 — of his life: "I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again "; 34 — "la

it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came

say ye of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?" Martensen, Dogmatics, 295-301, says of Jesus' teaching that "its source was not Inspiration, but incarnation." Jesus was not inspired —he was the Insplrer. Therefore he is the true " Master of those who know." His disciples act in his name; he acts in his own name.

(c) The guidance and teaching of his church on earth, since his ascension.—Christ's prophetic activity is continued through the preaching of his apostles and ministers, and by the enlightening influences of his Holy Spirit (John 16 : 12, 13; Acts 1:1). The apostles unfolded the germs of doctrine put into their hands by Christ. The church is, in a derivative sense, a prophetic institution, established to teach the world by its preaching and its ordinances. But Christians are prophets, only as being proclaimers of Christ's teaching (Num. 11 : 29; Joel 2 : 28).

John 16 :12-14 — "I hare yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear thorn now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth .... He shall glorify me; for he shall take of mine and shall declare it unto you"; Acts 1:1 — "The former treatise I made, 0 Theophilus, concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach " = Christ's prophetic work was only hcpim, during his earthly ministry; it is continued since his ascension. The inspiration of the apostles, the Illumination of all preachers and Christians to understand and to unfold the meaning of the word they wrote, the conviction of sinners, and the sanctiflcation of believers — all these are parts of Christ's prophetic work, performed through the Holy Spirit.

By virtue of their union with Christ and participation in Christ's Spirit, all Christians arc made in a secondary sense prophets. Sum. 11:29—" Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would pat his spirit upon them "; Joel 2 : 28 — "I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy." All modern prophecy that is true, however, is but the republication of Christ's message — the proclamation and expounding of truth already revealed in Scripture. "All so-called new prophecy, from Montanus to Swedenborg, proves its own falsity by its lack of attesting miracles."

(<2) Christ's final revelation of the Father to his saints in glory (John 16 : 25; 17 : 24, 26; cf. Is. 64 : 4; 1 Cor. 13 : 12).—Thus Christ's prophetic work will be an endless one, as the Father whom he reveals is infinite.

John 16 : 25 — "The hour cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in dark sayings, but shall tell you plainly of the Father "; 17 : 24 — "I desire that where I am, they also may be with me; that they may behold my glory, which thou hut riyen ins"; 26 — "I made known unto them thy name, and will make it known." The revelation of his own glory will be the revelation of the Father, in the Son. la. 64 : ♦ — " for from of old men hate not hoard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the ere seen a God beside thee, which worketh for him that waiteth for him "; 1 Cor. 13 :13 — " Now we aee in a mirror, darklj; bat then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fullj, Stsu as also I was full; known."

The priest was a person divinely appointed to transact with God on man's behalf. He fulfilled his office, first by offering sacrifice, and secondly by making intercession. In both these respects Christ is priest (Heb. 7: 24-28).

1. Christ's Sacrificial Work, or the Doctrine of the Atonement.

The Scriptures teach that Christ obeyed and suffered in our stead, to satisfy an immanent demand of the divine holiness, and thus remove an obstacle in the divine mind to the pardon and restoration of the guilty. This statement may be expanded as follows:

(a) The holiness of God (or his justice, which is transitive holiness) requires the punishment of sin. Sin is intrinsically ill-deserving, and God's justice is as much bound to punish sin, as sin is bound to be punished.

(6) The love of God, which desires the salvation of the sinner, can secure this end only by satisfying the holiness of which penalty is the necessary expression.

(c) This satisfaction can be rendered only by one who unites with a human nature responsible to law, yet personally pure, that same divine holiness that needs to be satisfied; in other words, the satisfaction must be by a substitution as respects man, and by a self-oblation as respects God.

(d) Christ, the God-man, meets this demand of God's holiness, and fulfils this impulse of God's love, by voluntarily enduring the penalty of the law, as our substitute, and, in virtue of his divine nature, undergoing death without being destroyed by it.

(e) Having thus satisfied the claims of justice against humanity, by bearing the physical and spiritual death which is the penalty of sin, Christ has removed all obstacles to the pardon of sinners which exist in the mind of God, apart from their own subjective impenitence and rebellion.

(/) Being in himself the embodied reconciliation and union of man and God, Christ offers the salvation he has wrought to all who will ratify his work and accept him as their Savior; and for all such, his atonement is a complete deliverance from the penalty of sin, and a security for their gradual emancipation from its power.

A. Scripture Methods of Representing the Atonement. We may classify the Scripture representations according as they conform to moral, commercial, legal, or sacrificial analogies.

(a) Moral.—The atonement is described as

A provision originating in God's love, and manifesting this love to the universe.

John 3 :16 —"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son"; Rom. 5 : 8 —"God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were ret sinners, Christ died for us "; John 4:9—" Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him."

An example of disinterested love, to secure our deliverance from selfishness.—In these latter passages, Christ's death is referred to as a source of moral stimulus to men.

Luke 9 : 22-24 —" The Son of man must suffer ... and be killed ... If any man would come after me. let him .. . take up his cross daily, and follow me... .Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it"; 2 Cor. 5: 15—"he died for all, that they which Uve should no longer live unto themselves"; Gal. 1: 4—"gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us out of this present evil world "; Eph. 5 : 25-27 —" Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it"; Col. 1: 21, 22 —" reconciled in the body of his Hash through death, to present you holy"; Titus 2 :14 — "gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify "; 1 Pet

2 : 21-24—" Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow his steps: who did no sin

who his own self bore our sins in his own body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness."

(6) Commercial,.—The atonement is described as

A ransom, paid to free us from the bondage of sin (note in these passages I the use of avri, the preposition of price, bargain, exchange).—In these pas- I sages, Christ's death is represented as the price of our deliverance from sin' and death.

Hat. 20 : 28. and Mark 10 : 45 —"to give his life a ransom for many "—Kvrpov Arri .\.;,t 1 Tim. 2 : 6— "who gave himself a ransom for all"— diri'AvTpoi'. ami (" for," in the sense of " instead of ") Is never confounded with virtp (" for." in the sense of "in behalf of," " for the the benefit of "). ami is the preposition of price, bargain, exchange; and this signification is traceable in •every passage where it occurs in the N. T. See Mat, 2 : 22— " irchelaus was reigning over Judea in ^ / the room of [ ami ] his father Herod "; Luke 11:11 —" shall his son ask .... a fish, and he for [' ai r( ] a fish give him ^ a serpent?" Heb. 12 : 2 —" Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for [ ami — as the price of ] the joy that was set before him endured the cross "; 16 — " Esau, wbo for [ ami =» in exchange for ] one mess of meat sold his own birthright." See also Mat. 16:26—"what shall a man give in exchange for (amdWay^a) his life"— = how shall he buy It back, when once he has lost it?

Meyer, on Mat. 20 : 28—"to give bis life a ransom for many "—"The <ln>xi Is conceived of as Aiirpoc, & ransom, for, through the shedding of the blood, it becomes the n^ii (price) of redemption." See alBO 1 Cor. 6 : 20; 7 : 23—"ye were bought with a price"; and 2 Pet. 2 :1 —"denying even the Master that bought them." The word "redemption," indeed, means simply "repurchase," or "the state of being repurchased "— (. t., delivered by the payment of a price. Rev. 5:9— "thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with thy blood men of every tribe." Winer, N. T. Grammar, 258—"In Greek, ami is the preposition of price." Buttmann, N. T. Grammar, 321—"In the signification of the preposition ami (instead of, for), no deviation occurs from ordinary usage." Sec Grimm's Wilke, Lexicon Graeco-Lat.: "avri, in I'iccm, amtatt "; also ■Cremer, N. T. Lex., on amaMayua.

(c) Legal.—The atonement is described as

An act of obedience to the law which sinners had violated.

6aL 4:4—" born of a woman, bom under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law "; Mat ■3 :15 —" thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness"—Christ's baptism prefigured his death, and was a consecration to death ; cf. Mark 10 : 38 —" ire ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with?" Luke 12 :50 —" I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how am I straightened till it bo accomplished!" Mat. 26 : 39 —" 0 my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt"; 5 :17 —" Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil"; Phil. 2:8 —" becoming obedient even unto death "; Rom. 5 :19 —" through the obedience of one shall the many be made righteous" ; 10:4—" Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth."

A penalty, borne in order to rescue the guilty.

Rom. 4 : 25 —" who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification "; 8:3 —" God. sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh "; 2 Cor. 5 : 21 —" Him who knew no sin be made to be sin on our behalf "—here "sin "=a sinner, an accursed one (Meyer); Gal 1:4—"g»vs himself for our sins"; 3 : 13— 'Christ redeemed us from the curse of the lew, hiring become a curse for us: for it iswritten, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree "; cf. Deut 21: 23 —" he that is hanged is accursed of God." Heb. 9 : 28 —" Christ also, baring been once offered to bear the sins of many "; cf. Lev. 5 : 17—"if any one sin .... yet is he guilty, and shall bear bis iniquity "; Hum. 14 : 34 —" for every day a year, shall bear your iniquities, even forty years "; Lam. 5 : 7 - " Our fathers hare sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities."

An exhibition of God's righteousness, necessary to the vindication of hia procedure in the pardon and restoration of sinners.—In these passages the death of Christ is represented as demanded by God's law and government.

Rom. 3 : 25. 26 —" whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in his blood, to shew his righteousness, because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God "; cf. Heb. 9 :15—"a death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant"

(<f) Sacbificiaij.—The atonement is described as

A work of priestly mediation, which reconciles God to men.—Noticehere that the term 'reconciliation' has its usual sense of removing enmity, not from the offending, but from the offended party.

Heb. 9 :11,12 —" Christ having come a high priest.... nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption "; Rom. 5 :10 —" while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son"; 2 Cor. 5 :18,19—"111 things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ.... God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses"; Eph. 2 :16—"might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby "; cf. 12,13,19 —" strangers from the covenants of the promise ... far off... no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow-citisens with the saints, and of the household of God"; Col. 1: 20 —" through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross."

On all these passages, see Meyer, who shows the meaning* of the apostle to be, that " we were 'enemies,' not actively, as hostile to God, but passively, as those with whom God was angry." The epistle to the Romans begins with the revelation of wrath against Gentile and Jew alike (Rom. 1:18). "While we were enemies" (IJonj^i; 10) = " when God was hostile to us." "Reconciliation " is therefore the removal of God's wrath toward man. Meyer, | on this last passage, says that Christ's death does not remove man's wrath toward God [this is not the work of Christ, but of the Holy Spirit]. The offender reconciles the person offended, not himself.

Qf. Hum. 25 :13, where Phinebas, by slaying Zimri, is said to have "made atonement for the children of IsraeL" Surely, the "atonement" here cannot be a reconciliation of Israel. The action terminates, not on the subject, but on the object — God. So, 1 Sam. 29: 4—"wherewith should this fellow reconcile himself unto his Lord? should it not be with the heads of these men?" Mat. 5 : 23, 24 —"If therefore thou art offering thy gilt at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother [i. e., remove bis enmity, not thlneown], and then come and offer thy gift"

A sin-offering, presented on behalf of transgressors.

^ John 1: 29—" Behold, the Lamb of God, which taltoth away the sin of the world "— here aljxuv means to take away by taking or bearing: to take, and so take away. It is an allusion to the sin-offering of Isaiah 53 : 7-12 —" when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin ... as a lamb that is led to the slaughter ... the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Hat. 26 : 28 —" this is the blood of the covenant which is shed for many unto remission of sins"; cf. Ps. 50 : 5—"made a covenant with me by sacrifice." 1 John 1: 7— "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" = not sanctiflcation, but justification; 1 Cor. 5 : 7— "our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ"; cf. Deut 16 : 2-6—"Thou shalt sacrifice the passover unto the

./ Lord thy God." Eph. 5:2 — " gate himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odor of a sweet smell" ;. Heb. 9 :14 —" the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God "; 22, 26 — "apart from shedding of blood there is no remission ... now onoe in the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" ; 1 Pet 1:18,19 —"redeemed ... with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot even the blood of Christ"

A propitiation, which satisfies the demands of violated holiness.

Rom. 3 : 26-26—" whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in his blood .... that he might himself be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus. A full and critical exposition of this passage la reserved for our examination of the ethical theory of the atonement. Here it Is sufficient to say that it shows: (1) that Christ's death is a propitiatory sacrifice; (2) that its first and main effect Is upon God; (3) that the particular attribute In God which demands the atonement Is his justice, or holiness; (4) that the satisfaction of this holiness is the necessary condition of God's Justifying the believer.

Compare Luke 18 :13, marg.—"God be merciful unto me the sinner"; lit.: "God be propitiated toward me the sinner"— by the sacrifice, whose smoke was ascending before the publican, even while he prayed. Heb. 2 :17 —"a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people "; 1 John 2 : 2 —" and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours onlj, but also for the whole world "; 4 :10 —" Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins "; cf. Gen. 32 : 20, ucx.—" I will appease [<f cAdo-o^m,' propitiate 'J him with the present that goeth before me "; Prov. 16 :14, Lxx.—" The wrath of a king is as messengers of death; but a wise man will paeify it" \ iti\ionai,' propitiate it'].

A substitution, of Christ's obedience and sufferings for ours.—These passages, taken together, show that Christ's death is demanded by God's attribute of justice, or holiness, if sinners are to be saved.

Luke 22 : 37 —" Ho was reckoned with transgressors "; cf. Lev. 16 : 21 —" And Aaron shall laj both his bands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel.... he shall put them upon the head of the goat.... and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a solitary land "; Is. S3 : 5, 6 —"He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. Ail we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." John 10 :11 —" The good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep "; Rom. 5 : 6-8 —" While we were yet weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: for peradveuture for the good man some one would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us"; 1 Pet. 3 :18 —" Christ also suffered for sins onoe, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God."

To these texts we must add all those mentioned under (70 above, in which Christ's death is described as a ransom. Besides Meyer's comment, there quoted, on Mat. 20 : 28— "to give his life a ransom for many," Kvrpov arri iroAAoiv — Meyer also says: "avri denotes substitution. That which is given as a ransom takes the place of, is given instead of, those who are to be set free in consideration thereof. ivri can only be understood in the sense of substitution in the act of which the ransom is presented as an equivalent, to secure the deliverance of those on whose behalf the ransom is paid—a view which is only confirmed by the fact that, in other parts of the N. T„ this ransom is usually spoken of as an expiatory sacrifice. That which they [those for whom the ransom is paid] are redeemed from, is the eternal in«»n» in which, as having the wrath of God abiding upon them, they would remain Imprisoned, as in a state of hopeless bondage, unless the guilt of their sins were expiated."

Cremer, N. T. Lex., says that " in both the N. T. texts. Mat 16 : 26 and Mark 8 : 37, the word ■vraAAayiao, like Aurpoi-, is akin to the conception of atonement; cf. Is. 43 : 3, 4; 49 : 8; Amos S : 12. This Is a confirmation of the fact that satisfaction and substitution essentially belong to the Idea of atonement." Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2: 515 (Syst. Doct., 3: 414)— "Mat. 20 : 28 contains the thought of a substitution. While the whole world is not of equal worth with the soul, and could not purchase it, Christ's death and work are so valuable, that they can serve as a ransom."

An examination of the passages referred to shows that, while the forms in which the atoning work of Christ is described are in part derived from moral, commercial, and legal relations, the prevailing language is that of sacrifice. A correct view of the atonement must therefore be grounded upon a proper interpretation of the institution of sacrifice, especially as found in the Mosaic system.

B. The Institution of Sacrifice, especially as found in the Mosaic system.

(a) We may dismiss as untenable, on the one hand, the theory that sacrifice is essentially the presentation of a gift (Hofmann, Baring-Gould) or a feast (Spencer) to the Deity; and on the other hand the theory that sacrifice is a symbol of renewed fellowship (Keil), or of the grateful offering to God of the whole life and being of the worshiper (Bahr). Neither of these theories can explain the fact that the sacrifice is a bloody offering, involving the suffering and death of the victim, and brought, not by the simply grateful, but by the conscience-stricken soul.

(6) The true import of the sacrifice, as is abundantly evident from both heathen and Jewish sources, embraced two elements,—first, that of satisfaction to offended Deity, or propitiation offered to violated holiness; and secondly, that of substitution of suffering and death on the part of the innocent, for the deserved punishment of the guilty. Combining these two ideas, we have as the total import of the sacrifice: satisfaction by substitution. The bloody sacrifice among the heathen expressed the consciousness that sin involved guilt; that guilt exposed man to the righteous wrath of God; that without expiation of that guilt, there was no forgiveness.

Luthardt, Compendium der Dogmatik, 170, quotes from NHgelsbach, Nachhomerische Theologie, 338 sq.~" The essence of punishment is retribution (Vergeltung), and retribution is a fundamental law of the world-order. In retribution lies the atoning- power of punishment. This consciousness that the nature of sin demands retribution, in other words, this certainty that there is in Deity a righteousness that punishes sin, taken in connection with the consciousness of personal transgression, awakens the longing for atonement "—which is expressed in the sacrifice of a slaughtered beast. The Greeks recognized representative expiation, not only in the sacrifice of beasts, but In human sacrifices. See Virgil, ^neid, 5 : 815—" Unum pro multls dabitur caput." Ovid, Fasti, vl—"Cor pro corde, precor; pro flbris sumite nbras. Hanc anitnam vobis pro meliore damus."

Stahl, Christliche Phtlosophie, 146—" Every unperverted conscience declares the eternal law of righteousness that punishment shall follow inevitably on sin. In the moral realm, there is another way of satisfying righteousness — that of atonement. This differs from punishment in its effect, that is, reconciliation — the moral authority asserting Itself, not by the destruction of the offender, but by taking him up into itself and uniting itself to him. But the offender cannot offer his own sacrifice — that must be done by the priest." In the Prometheus Bound, of ^schylus, Hermes says to Prometheus: "Hope not for an end to such oppression, until a god appears as thy substitute in torment, ready to descend for thee into the unillumined realm of Hades and the dark abyss of Tartarus." And this is done by Chiron, the wisest and most Just of the Centaurs, the son of Chronos, sacrificing himself for Prometheus, while Hercules kills the eagle at his breast and so delivers him from torment. This legend of .lEscbylus Is almost a prediction of the true Redeemer.

(c) In considering the exact purport and efficacy of the Mosaic sacrifices, we must distinguish between their theocratical, and their spiritual, offices. They were, on the one hand, the appointed means whereby the offender could be restored to the outward place and privileges, as member of the theocracy, which he had forfeited by neglect or transgression; and they accomplished this purpose irrespectively of the temper and spirit with which they were offered. On the other hand, they were symbolic of the vicarious sufferings and death of Christ, and obtained forgiveness and acceptance with God, only as they were offered in true penitence, and with faith in God's method of salvation. Etb. 9 :13,14 —" For if the blood of goats and bulla, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling them that hare boon denied. sanctify onto the cleanness of the flesh: how moch more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God, cleanse jour conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 10 : 3, 4 —" But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year bj year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take sway sins."

(d) Thus the Old Testament sacrifices, when rightly offered, involved a consciousness of sin on the part of the worshiper, the bringing of a victim to atone for the sin, the laying of the hand of the offerer upon the victim's head, the confession of sin by the offerer, the slaving of the beast, the sprinkling or pouring-out of the blood upon the altar, and the consequent forgiveness of the sin and acceptance of the worshiper. The sin-offering and the scape-goat of the great day of atonement symbolized yet more distinctly the two elementary ideas of sacrifice, namely, satisfaction and substitution, together with the consequent removal of guilt from those on whose behalf the sacrifice was offered.

Lot. 1:4—" And he shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering; and it shall he accepted for him. to make atonement for him "; 4 : 20 —" Thus shall he do with the bullock; as he did with the bullock of the sin-offering, so shall he do with this: and the priest shall make atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven"; so 31 and 36—"and the priest shall make atonement as touching his sin that he hath sinned, and he shall be forgiven "; so 5 :10,16; 6: 7. Lev. 17 :11—" For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life."

The patriarchal sacrifices were sin-offerlng-s, as the sacrifice of Job for his friends witnesses: Job 42 : 7, 9 —"My wrath is kindled against thee [ Eliphaz] — Therefore, take unto you seven bullocks .... and offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering "; cf. 33 : 24 —" Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down into the pit, 1 have found a ransom"; 1: 5 — Job offered burnt-offerings for his sons, for he said, "It may be that my sous have sinned and renounced God in their hearts "; Gen. 8 : 20 — Noah "offered burnt-offerings on the altar ";. 21 —" and the Lord smelled the sweet savor; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any mora for man's sake."

That vicarious Buffering is intended in all these sacrifices, Is plain from Lev. 16 :1-34 — the account of the sin-offering- and the scape-goat of the great day of atonement, the full meaning of which we give below; also from Gen. 22:13 —"Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for s burnt-offering in the stead of his son "; Ex. 32:30-32 — where Mosessays: "Te have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; perad venture I shall make atonement for your sin. And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Tet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin —; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written." See also Dent 21:1-9 — the expiation of an uncertain murder, by the sacrifice of a heifer — where Oehler, O. T. Theology, 1: 389, says: "Evidently the punishment of death incurred by the mansluyer is executed symbolically upon the heifer." In Is. 53 :1-12— "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all... stripes offering for sin"— the ideas of both satisfaction and substitution are still more plain.

Wallace, Representative Responsibility: "The animals offered In sacrifice must be animals brought Into direct relation to man, subject to him, his property. They could not be spoils of the chase. They must bear the mark and impress of humanity. Upon the sacrifice human hands must be laid —the hands of the offerer and the bands of the priest. The offering is the substitute of the offerer. The priest is the substitute of the offerer. The priest and the sacrifice were one gymb<A. [ Hence, in the new dispensation, the priest and the sacrifice are one —both are found in Christ]. The high priest must enter the holy of holies with his own finger dipped in blood: the blood must be in contact with his own person — another indication of the identification of the two. Life is nourished and sustained by life. All life lower than man may be sacrificed for the good of man. The blood must be spilled on the ground. 'In the blood is the life.' The life is reserved by God. It is given for man, but not fo him. Life for life is the law of the creation. So the life of Christ, also, for our life. — Adam was originally priest of the family and of the race. But he lost bis representative character by the one act of disobedience, and his redemption was that of the individual, not that of the race. The race ceased to have a representative. The subjects of the divine government were henceforth to be, not the natural offspring of Adam as such, but the redeemed. That the body and the blood are both required, Indicates the demand that the death should be by a violence that sheds blood. The sacrifices showed forth, not Christ himself [his character, his life ]. but Christ's death."

The following Is a tentative scheme of the Jewish Sacrifices. The general reason for sacrifice Is expressed In Lor. 17:11 (quoted above >. I. For the iwiividwal: 1. The sinoffering sacrifice to expiate sins of ignorance (thoughtlessness and plausible temptation ): Let. 4 :14, 20, 31. 2. The trespass-offering = sacrifice to expiate sins of omission: Lar. 5 : 5, 6. 3. The burnt-offering = sacrifice to expiate general sinfulness: Lot. t: 3 < the offering of Mary, Loin 2: 24). II. For the family: The Passover: li. 12 : 27. III. For the pciple: 1. The daily morning and evening sacrifice: b. 29 : 38-46. 2. The offering of the great day of atonement: Ler. 16 ; 6-10. In this last, two victims were employed, one to represent the means —death, and the other to represent the result — forgiveness. One victim could not represent both the atonement — by shedding of blood, and the Justification — by putting away sin.

(e) It is not essential to this view to maintain that a formal divine institution of the rite of sacrifice, at man's expulsion from Eden, can be proved from Scripture. Like the family and the state, sacrifice may, without such formal inculcation, possess divine sanction, and be ordained of God. The well-nigh universal prevalence of sacrifice, however, together with the fact that its nature, as a bloody offering, seems to preclude man's own invention of it, combines with certain Scripture intimations to favor the view that it was a primitive divine appointment. From the time of Moses, there can be no question as to its divine authority.

Compare the origin of prayer and worship, for which we find no formal divine injunctions at the beginnings of history. Heb. 11: 4 — "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had witness borne to him that he was righteous, God bearing witness in respect of his gifts"—here it may be argued that since Abel's faith was not presumption, it must have had some injunction and promise of God to base itself upon. Gen. 4 : 3, 4 — " Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of bis flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect"

It has t>een urged, in corroboration of this view, that the previous existence of sacrifice is Intimated in Gen. 3 : 21 — " And the Lord God made for Adam, and for his wife coats of skins, and clothed them." Since the killing of animals for food was not permitted until long afterwards (Gen. 9 : 3 — to Noah: "Bvery moring thing that lireth shall be food for you " ), the inference has been drawn, that the skins with which God clothed our first parents were the skins of animals slain for sacrifice,—this clothing furnishing a type of the righteousness of Christ which secures our restoration to God's favor, as the death of the victims furnished a type of the suffering of Christ which secures for us remission of punishment. We must regard this, however, as a pleasing and possibly correct hypothesis, rather than as a demonstrated truth of Scripture. Since the unperverted instincts of human nature are an expression of God's will, Abel's faith may have consisted in trusting these, rather than the promptings of selfishness and self-righteousness. On the divine appointment of sacrifice, see Park, In Bib. Sac., Jan., 1876 :102-132.

On Gen. 4 : 3, 4, see C. H. M.—" The entire difference between Cain and Abel lay, not In their natures, but In their sacrifices. Cain brought to God the sin-stained fruit of a cursed earth. Here was no recognition of the fact that he was a sinner, condemned to death. All his toll could not satisfy God's holiness, or remove the penalty. But Abel recognized his sin, condemnation, helplessness, death, and brought the bloody sacrifice — the sacrifice of another — the sacrifice provided by God, to meet the claims of God. He found a substitute, and he presented it in faith — the faith that looks away from self to Christ, or God's appointed way of salvation. The difference was not in their persons, but in their gifts. Of Abel it is said, that God 'bore witness in respect of his gifts' (Heb. 11: 4). To Cain it is said, 'if thou doest well ( Lxx.: bpdd npoatvtyKT^ —' if thou offerest correctly') shalt thou not be accepted?' But Cain desired to get away from Ood and from God's way, and to lose himself In the world. This is'the way of Cain' (Judell)." Per contra, see Crawford, Atonement, 259 —" Both In Levitlcal and patriarchal times, we have no formal institution of sacrifice, but the regulation of sacrifice already existing. But Abel's faith may have had respect, not to a revelation with regard to sacrificial worship, but with regard to the promised Redeemer; and his sacrifice may have expressed that faith. If so, God's acceptance of It gave a divine warrant to future sacrifices. It was not will-worship, because it was not substituted for some other worship which God had previously instituted. It is not necessary to suppose that God save an express command. Abel may have been moved by some inward divine monition. Thus Adam said to Eve, 'This U now bom of my bon«B...' (Hon. 2 : 23), before any divine command of marriage. No fruits were presented during the patriarchal dispensation. Heathen sacrifices were corruptions of primitive sacrifice."

(/) The New Testament assumes and presupposes the Old Testament doctrine of sacrifice. The sacrificial language in which its descriptions of Christ's work are clothed cannot be explained as an accommodation to Jewish methods of thought, since this terminology was in large part in common use among the heathen, and Paul used it more than any other of the apostles in dealing with the Gentiles. To deny to it its Old Testament meaning, when used by New Testament writers to describe the work of Christ, is to deny any proper inspiration both in the Mosaic appointment of sacrifices and in the apostolic interpretations of them. We must therefore maintain, as the result of a simple induction of Scripture facts, that the death of Christ is a vicarious offering, provided by God's love for the purpose of satisfying an internal demand of the divine holiness, and of removing an obstacle in the divine mind to the renewal and pardon of sinners.

"The epistle of James makes no allusion to sacrifice. But he would not have failed to allude to it, if he had held the moral view of the atonement; for It would then have been an obvious help to his argument against merely formal service. Christ protested against washing hands and keeping Sabbath days. If sacrifice had been a piece of human formality, how Indignantly would he have inveighed against it! But Instead of this he received from John the Baptist, without rebuke, the words: 'Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.'"

For denial that Christ's death is to be Interpreted by heathen or Jewish sacrifices, see Maurice on Sac, 15+—"The heathen signification of words, when applied to a Christian use, must be not merely modified, but inverted "; Jowett, Epistles of St. Paul, 2 : 478— "The heathen and Jewish sacrifices rather show us what the sacrifice of Christ was not. than what it was." Bushnell and Young do not doubt the expiatory nature of heathen sacrifices. But the main terms which the N. T. uses to describe Christ's sacrifice are borrowed from the Greek sacrificial ritual, e. g. dvaia, wpouitopo., iAao>6t, iyia^m, Kadaipu, tAa<r«opat. To deny that these terms, when applied to Christ, imply expiation and substitution, is to deny the inspiration of those who used them. See Cave, Scripture Doctrine of Sacrifice; art. on Sacrifice, in Smith's Bible Dictionary.

C. Theories of the Atonement.

1st. The Socinian, or Example Theory of the Atonement.

This theory holds that subjective sinfulness is the sole barrier between man and God. Not God, but only man, needs to be reconciled. The only method of reconciliation is to better man's moral coudition. This can be effected by man's own will, through repentance and reformation. The death of Christ is but the death of a noble martyr. He redeems us, only as his human example of faithfulness to truth and duty has a powerful influence upon our moral improvement. This fact the apostles, either consciously or unconsciously, clothed in the language of the Greek and Jewish sacrifices. This theory was fully elaborated by Lselius Socinus and Faustus Socinus of Poland, in the 16th century. Its modern advocates are found in the Unitarian body.

The Socinian theory may be found stated, or advocated, in Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum, 1 -.666-600; Martlneau, Studies of Christianity, 83-176; J. F. Clarke, Orthodoxy. Its Truths and Errors, 235-265; Ellis, Unitarianism and Orthodoxy; Sheldon, Sin and Redemption, 146-210. The text which at first siirht most seems to favor this view is 1 Prt. 2:21 — " Christ also suffered for you. leaving jou an example, that ye should follow his steps." But see under («) below.

To this theory we make the following objections:

(a) It is based upon false philosophical principles, — as, for example, that will is merely the faculty of volitions; that the foundation of virtue is in utility; that law is an expression of arbitrary will; that penalty is a means of reforming the offender; that righteousness, in either God or man, is only a manifestation of benevolence.

If the will Is simply the faculty of volitions, and not also the fundamental determination of the being to an ultimate end, then man can, by a single volition, effect his own reformation and reconciliation to God. If the foundation of virtue is in utility, then there is nothing in the divine being that prevents pardon — the good of the creature, and not the demands of God's holiness, being the reason for Christ's suffering. If law Is an expression of arbitrary will. Instead of being a transcript of the divine nature, it may at any time be dispensed with, and the sinner may be pardoned on mere repentance. If penalty is merely a means of reforming the offender, then sin does not Involve objective guilt, or obligation to suffer, and sin may be forgiven, at any moment, to all who forsake it —indeed, rrnurt be forgiven, since punishment is out of place when the sinner is reformed. If righteousness is only a form or manifestation of benevolence, then God can show his benevolence as easily through pardon as through penalty, and Christ's death is only intended to attract us toward the good by the force of a noble example.

(b) It is a natural outgrowth from the Pelagian view of sin, and logically necessitates a curtailment or surrender of every other characteristic doctrine of Christianity — inspiration, sin, the deity of Christ, justification, regeneration, and eternal retribution.

The Soclnlan theory requires a surrender of the doctrine of inspiration; for the idea of vicarious and expiatory sacrifice is woven into the very warp and woof of the Old and New Testaments. It requires an abandonment of the Scripture doctrine of sin; for in it all idea of sin as perversion of nature rendering the sinner unable to save himself, and as objective guilt demanding satisfaction to the divine holiness, Is denied. It requires us to give up the deity of Christ; for if sin is a slight evil, and man can save himself from its penalty and power, then there is no longer need of either an infinite suffering or an infinite Savior, and a human Christ is as good as a divine. It requires us to give up the Scripture doctrine of Justification, as God's act of declaring the sinner just in the eye of the law, solely on account of the righteousness and death of Christ to whom he is united by faith; for the Socinian theory cannot permit the counting to a man of any other righteousness than his own. It requires a denial of the doctrine of regeneration; for this is no longer the work of God, but the work of the sinner; it is no longer a change of the affections below consciousness, but a self-reforming volition of the sinner himself. It requires a denial of eternal retribution; for this is no longer appropriate to finite transgression of arbitrary law, and to superficial sinning that does not involve nature.

(c) It contradicts the Scripture teachings, that sin involves objective guilt as well as subjective defilement; that the holiness of Qod must punish sin; that the atonement was a bearing of the punishment of sin for men; and that this vicarious bearing of punishment was necessary, on the part of God, to make possible the showing of favor to the guilty.

The Scriptures do not make the main object of the atonement to be man's subjective moral Improvement. It is to God that the sacrifice is offered, and the object of it Is to satisfy the divine holiness, and to remove from the divine mind an obstacle to the showing of favor to the guilty. It was something external to man, and his happiness or virtue, that required that Christ should suffer. What Emerson has said of the martyr is yet more true of Christ: "Though love repine, and reason chafe, There comes a voice without reply, "Tig man's perdition to be safe. When for the truth he ought to die." The truth for which Christ died was truth internal to the nature of God; not simply truth externalized and published among men. What the truth of God required, that Christ rendered —full satisfaction to violated Justice. "Jesus paid it all"; and no obedience or righteousness of ours can be added to his work, as a ground of our salvation.

(d) It furnishes no proper explanation of the sufferings and death of Christ. The unnmrtyrlike anguish cannot be accounted for, and the forsaking by the Father cannot be justified, upon the hypothesis that Christ died as a mere witness to truth. If Christ's sufferings were not propitiatory, they neither furnish us with a perfect example, nor constitute a manifestation of the love of God.

Compare Jesus' feeling, in view of death, with that of Paul: "Hiring the desire to depart" (Phil. 1: 23). Jesus was filled with anguish: "Sow is my soul troubled; and what shall I saj? Father, save ma from thin hour" (John 12 : 27). If Christ was simply a martyr, then he is not a perfect example; for many a martyr has shown greater courage in prospect of death, and in the final agony has been able to say that the Are that consumed him was "a bed of roses." Gethsemane, with its mental anguish, is apparently recorded in order to indicate that Christ's sufferings even on the cross were not mainly physical sufferings.

Stroud, in his Physical Cause of our Lord's Death, has made it probable that Jesus died of a broken heart, and that this alone explains John 19 : 34—"one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and straightway there came out blood and water"—I. e„ the heart had already been raptured by grief. That grief was grief at the forsaking of the Father (Mat 27 : 46—"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me " ), and the resulting death shows that that forsaking was no imaginary one. Did God make the holiest man of all to be the greatest sufferer of all the ages? This heart broken by the forsaking of the Father means more than martyrdom. If Christ's death is not propitiatory, it fills me with terror and despair; for it presents me not only with a very imperfect example in Christ, but with a proof of measureless injustice on the part of God.

(e) The influence of Christ's example is neither declared in Scripture, nor found in Christian experience, to be the chief result secured by his death. Mere example is but a new preaching of the law, which repels and condemns. The cross has power to lead men to holiness, only as it first shows a satisfaction made for their sins. Accordingly, most of the passages which represent Christ as an example also contain references to his propitiatory work.

There is no virtue in simply setting an example. Christ did nothing, simply for the sake of example. The apostle's exhortation is not "abstain from all appearance of evil" (1 Thee. 5 : 22, A. Vers.), but "abstain from every form of evil" ( Rev. Vers.). Christ's death is the payment of a real debt due to God; and the convicted sinner needs first to see the debt which he owes to the divine Justice paid by Christ, before he can think hopefully of reforming his life. The hymns of the church: "I lay my sins on Jesus," and "Not all the blood of beasts," represent the view of Christ's sufferings which Christians have derived from the Scriptures. When the sinner sees that the mortgage is cancelled, that the penalty has been borne, he can devote himself freely to the service of his Redeemer, The very text upon which Socinians most rely, when it is taken in connection with the context, proves their theory to be a misrepresentation of Scripture. 1 Pet. 2: 21—" Christ also suffered for you, leaving yon an example, that ye should follow his steps "—is succeeded by verse 24—"who his own self bare our sins in his own body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed"—the latter words being a direct quotation from Isaiah's description of the substitutionary sufferings of the Messiah (Is. 53: 5).

(/) This theory contradicts the whole tenor of the New Testament, in making the life, and not the death, of Christ the most significant and important feature of his work. The constant allusions to the death of Christ as the source of our salvation, as well as the symbolism of the ordinances, cannot be explained upon a theory which regards Christ as a mere example, and considers his sufferings as incidents, rather than essentials, of his work.

Dr. H. B. Hackctt frequently called attention to the fact, that the recording In the gospel of only three years of Jesus' life, and the prominence (riven In the record to the closing scenes of that life, are evidence that not his life, but his death, was the great work of our Lord. Christ's death, and not his life, is the central truth of Christianity. The cross is par excellence the Christiun symbol. In both the ordinances—in Baptism as well as In the Lord'B Supper —it is the death of Christ that is primarily set forth. Neither Christ's example, nor his teaching, reveals God as does his death. It is the death of Christ that links together all Christlau doctrines. The mark of Christ's blood Is upon them all, as the scarlet thread running through every cord and rope of the British navy gives sign that it is the property of the crown.

On the Soclnian doctrine of the Atonement, see Crawford, Atonement, 279-296; Shedd, History of Doctrine, 2 : 376-386: Doctrines of the Early Socinlans, in Princeton Essays, 1: 194-211; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, iv. 2 : 156-180; Fock, Soclnianismus.

2nd. The Bushnellian, or Moral-influence Theory of the Atonement.

This holds, like the Socinian, that there is no principle of the divine nature which is propitiated by Christ's death; but that this death is a manifestation of the love of God, suffering in and with the sins of his creatures. Christ's atonement, therefore, is the merely natural consequence of his taking human nature upon him; and is a suffering, not of penalty in man's stead, but of the combined woes and griefs which the living of a human life involves. This atonement has effect, not to satisfy divine justice, but so to reveal divine love as to soften human hearts and lead them to repentance; in other words, Christ's sufferings were necessary, not in order to remove an obstacle to the pardon of sinners which exists in the mind of God, but in order to convince sinners that there exists no such obstacle. This theory, for substance, has been advocated by Bushnell, in America; by Robertson, Maurice, Campbell, and Young, in Great Britain; and by Bitschl, in Germany.

Origen and Abelard are earlier representatives of this view. It may be found stated in Buslinell's Vicarious Sacrifice. Dushnell's later work, Forgiveness and Law, contains a modification of his earlier doctrine, to which he was driven by the criticisms upon his Vicarious Sacrifice. In the later work, he acknowledges what he had so strenuously denied in the earlier, namely, that Christ's death has effect upon God, as well as upon man, and that God cannot forgive, without thus "making cost to himself." Even in Forgiveness and Law, however, there is no recognition of the true principle and ground of the Atonement in God's punitive holiness. Since the original form of Bushnell's doctrine is the only one which has met with wide acceptance, we direct our objections mainly to this.

F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 1 : 163-178, holds that Christ's sufferings were the necessary result of the position in which he had placed himself of conHlet or collision with the evil that is in the world. He came in contact with the whirling wheel, and wag crushed by it; he planted his heel upon the cockatrice's den, and was pierced by its fang. Maurice on Sacrifice, 209, and Theol. Essays, Hi, 228, regards Christ's sufferings as an illustration, given by the ideal man, of the self-sacrifice due to God from the humanity of which he is the root and head, all men being redeemed in him, irrespective of their faith, and needing only to have brought to them the news of this redemption.

Campbell, Atonement, 129-191, quotes from Edwards, to show that Infinite justice might be satisfied in either one of two ways: (1) by an infinite punishment; (2) by an adequate repentance. This last, which Edwards passed by as impracticable, Campbell declares to have been the real atonement offered by Christ, who stands as the great Penitent, confessing the sins of the world. For objections to this view, sec on (c ) below. Young, Life and Light of Men, 283-313, holds a view essentially the same with Robertson's. Christ's death is the necessary result of his collision with evil, and his sufferings extirpate sin, simply by manifesting God's self-sacrificing loveT Ritschl, Rechtfertlgung und Versfihnung, Is the most recent and learned representative of this general view in Germany. For statement and criticism of these forms of the Moral-influence theory, see Crawford, Atonement, 297-366.

To this theory we object as follows:

(a) While it embraces a valuable element of truth, namely, the moral influence upon men of the sufferings of the God-man, it is false by defect, in that it substitutes a subordinate effect of the atonement for its chief aim, and yet unfairly appropriates the name 'vicarious,' which belongs only to the latter. Suffering with the sinner is by no means suffering in his stead, y

Dale, Atonement, 137, illustrates Ilushnell's view by the loyal wife, who suffers exile or imprisonment with her husband; by the philanthropist, who suffers the privations and hardships of a savage people, whom he can civilize only by enduring the miseries from which he would rescue them; by the Moravian missionary, who enters for life the lepers' enclosure, that he may convert its inmates. So Potwin says that suffering and death are the cost of the atonement, not the atonement itself.

But we reply that such sufferings as these do not make Christ's sacrifice vicarious. The word 'vicarious' (from fix, vicig) implies substitution, which this theory denies. A vice-president is one who acts in place of the president; 'A. B., appointed consul, vice C. D., resigned,' implies that A. B. is now to serve in the stead of C. D. If Christ Is a 'vicarious sacrifice,' then he makes atonement to God in the place and stead of sinners. Christ's suffering in and with sinners, though It is a most important and affecting^fact, is not the suffering in their stead in which the atonement consists. Though it may be in part the medium through which Christ was enabled to endure God's wrath against sin, it is not to be confounded with the reason why God lays this suffering upon him; nor should It blind us to the fact that this reason Is his standing in the sinner's place to answer for sin to the retributive holiness of God.

(6) It rests upon false philosophical principles, — as that righteousness is identical with benevolence, instead of conditioning it; that God is subject to an eternal law of love, instead of being himself the source of all law; that the aim of penalty is the reformation of the offender.

Hovey, God with Ds, 181-271, has given one of the best replies to Bushncll. He shows that if God Is subject to an eternal law of love, then God is necessarily a Savior; that he must have created man as soon as be could; that he makes men holy, as fast as possible; that be does all the good he can; that he is no better than he should be. But this Is to deny the transcendence of God, and reduce omnipotence to a mere nature-power. The conception of God as subject to law imperils God's self-sufficiency and freedom. For Bushnell's statements with regard to the identity of righteousness and love, and for criticisms upon them, see our treatment of the attribute of holiness, page 129, note (d).

(c) It contradicts the plain teachings of Scripture, that the atonement is necessary, not* simply to reveal God's love, but to satisfy his justice; that Christ's sufferings are propitiatory and penal; and that the human conscience needs to be propitiated by Christ's sacrifice, before it can feel the moral influence of his sufferings.

That the atonement Is primarily an offering to God, and not to the sinner, appears from Eph. 5 : 2 — "g»T« himself up for us, »n offering and sacrifice to God"; Eeb. 9 :14 —" offered himself without blemish unto God." Conscience, the reflection of God's holiness, can be propitiated only by propitiating holiness itself. Mere love and sympathy are maudlin, and powerless to move, unless there is a background of righteousness. Spear: "An appeal to man, without anything back of it to emphasize and enforce the appeal, will never touch the heart. The mere appearance of an atonement has no moral influence." Crawford, Atonement, 358-367 — " Instead of delivering us from penalty, in order to deliver us from sin, this theory makes Christ to deliver us from sin, in order that He may deliver us from penalty. But this reverses the order of Scripture. And Dr. Bushnell concedes, in the end, that the moral view of the atonement is morally powerless; and that the objective view hecondemns Is, after all, Indispensable to the salvation of sinners."

(cf) It can be maintained, only by wreBting from their obvious meaning those passages of Scripture which speak of Christ as suffering for our sins; which represent his blood as accomplishing something for us in heaven, when presented there by our intercessor; which declare forgiveness to be a remitting of past offenses upon the ground of Christ's death; and which describe justification as a pronouncing, not a making, just

We have seen that the forms in which the Scriptures describe Christ's death are mainly drawn from sacrifice. Notice IUishiioll's acknowledgment that these "altarforms" are the most vivid and effective methods of presenting Christ's work, and that the preacher cannot dispense with them. Why ho should not dispense with them, If the meaning ha9 gone out of them, is not so clear.

In his latter work, entitled Forgiveness and Law, Bushnell appears to recognize this inconsistency, and represents God as affected by the atonement, after all; In other words, the atonement has an objective as well as a subjective Influence. God can forgive, only by " making cost to hlmBelf." He "works down his resentment, by suffering for us." This verges toward the true view, but it does not recognize the demand of divine holiness for satisfaction: and it attributes passion, weakness, and imperfection to God. Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:591 (Syst. Doct., 4 : 59,89), objects to this modified moral-Influence theory, that the love that can do good to an enemy is alreculu forgiving love; so that the benefit totheenemy cannot be, as Bushnell supposes, a condition of the forgivencm.

To Campbell's view, that Christ Is the great Penitent, and that his atonement consists essentially in his confessing the sins of the world, we reply, that no confession or penitence is possible without responsibility. If Christ had no substitutionary office, the ordering of his sufferings on the part of God was manifest Injustice. Such sufferings, mereover, are impossible upon grounds of mere sympathy. The Scripture explains them by declaring thut he bore our curse, and became a ransom in our place. There was more therefore In the sufferings of Christ than "a perfect Ainen in humanity to the judgment of God on the sin of man." Not Phinehas's zeal for God, but his execution of judgment, made an atonement (Ps. 108 : 30— "executed judgment"—Lxx. : «'fi*acraTo, "made propitiation" ) and turned away the wrath of God. Observe here the contrast between the priently atonement of Aaron, who stood between the living and the dead, and the judicial atonement of Pbinchas, who executed righteous Judgment, and so turned awuy wrath. In neither ease did mere cnnfemUm suffice to take away sin.

Bushnell regards Mat 8 :17— "Himself took oar infirmities and bare our diseases" — as indicating the nature of his atoning work. The meaning then would be, that he sympathized so fully with all human ills that he made them his own. Hovey, however, has given a more complete and correct explanation. The words mean rather: "His deep sympathy with these effects of sin so moved him, that it typified his final bearing of the sins themselves, or constituted a preliminary and partial endurance of the suffering which was to expiate the sins of men."

(e) This theory would confine the influence of the atonement to those who have heard of it,— thus excluding patriarchs and heathen. But the Scriptures represent Christ as being the Savior of all men, in the sense of securing them grace, which, but for his atoning work, could never have been bestowed, consistently with the divine holiness.

Hovey: "The manward tnfluence of the atonement is far more extensive than the moral Influence of It." Christ is Advocate, not with the sinner, but with the Father. While the Spirit's work has moral Influence over the hearts of men, the Son secures, through the presentation of his blood, in heaven, the pardon which can come only from God (1 John M "W« hare an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins"). Hence 1:9— "If we confess our sins, he [God] is faithful and righteous [faithful to his promise and righteous to Christ! to forgive us our sins." Hence the publican does not first pray for change of heart, but for mercy upon the ground of sacrifice (Luke 18:13. Rev. Vers.—" God, be mertiful to mo a sinner," but literally: "God be propitiated toward me the sinner " ). See

This theory holds that the atonement is a satisfaction, not to any internal principle of the divine nature, but to the necessities of government. God's government of the universe cannot be maintained, nor can the divine law preserve its authority over its subjects, unless the pardon of offenders is accompanied by some exhibition of the high estimate which God sets upon his law, and the heinous guilt of violating it. Such an exhibition of divine regard for the law is furnished in the sufferings and death of Christ. Christ does not suffer the precise penalty of the law, but God graciously accepts his suffering as a substitute for the penalty. This bearing of substituted suffering on the part of Christ gives the divine law such hold upon the consciences and hearts of men, that God can pardon the guilty upon their repentance, without detriment to the interests of his government. The author of this theory was Hugo Grotius, the Dutch jurist and theologian (1583-1645). The theory is characteristic of the New England theology, and is generally held by those who accept the New School view of sin.

Grotius, the Jurist, conceived of law as a mere matter of political expediency —a device to secure practical governmental results. The text most frequently quoted in support of the theory, is Is. 42 : 21 — " It plotted the Lord for his righteousness' tike to mtgnitj the law, and make it honorable." Strangely enough, the explanation is added: "Even when its demands are unfulfilled." Park: "Christ satisfied the law, by making it desirable and consistent / for God not to come up to the demands of the law. Christ suffers a divine chastisement J in consequence of our sins. Christ was cursed for Adam's sin. Just as the heavens and the earth were cursed for Adam's sin — that is, he bore pains and sufferings on account of it."

Grotius used the word occeptilatifi, by which he meant God's sovereign provision of a suffering which was not itself penalty, but which he had determined to accept as a sub-f ( stltute for penalty. Here we have a virtual denial that there Is anything in GodV nature that requires Christ to suffer; for if penalty may be remitted in part, it may be remitted in whole, and the reason why Christ suffers at all Is to be found, not in any demand of God's holiness, but solely in the beneficial Influence of these sufferings upon man; so that in principle this theory is allied to the Example theory and the Moral-influence theory, already mentioned.

Notice the difference between holding to a subntUute for penalty, as Grotius did, and holding to an equivalent guhrtltuted penalty, as the Scriptures do. Grotius's own statement of his view may be found In his Defensio Fidei Catholicu; de Satisfactione (Works, 4 : 297-338). More modern statements of it arc those of Wardlaw, In his Systematic Theology, 2 : 858-395, and of Albert Barnes, on the Atonement. The history of New England thought upon the subject is given in Discourses and Treatises on the Atonement, edited by Prof. Park, of Andover. 'President Woolsey: "Christ's suffering was due to a deep and awful sense of responsibility, a conception of the supreme importance to man of his standing firm at this crisis. He bore, not the wrath of God, but suffering, as the only way of redemption so far as men's own feeling of sin was concerned, and so far as the government of God was concerned." This unites the Governmental and the Moral-influence theories.

To this theory we urge the following objections:

(a) While it contains a valuable element of truth, namely, that the sufferings and death of Christ secure the interests of God's government, it is false by defect, in substituting for the chief aim of the atonement one which is only subordinate and incidental.

In our discussion of Penalty (pages 351, a52), we have seen that the object of punishment is not primarily the security of government. It Is not right to punish a man for the benefit of society. Ill-desert must go before punishment, or the punishment can have no beneficial effect on society. No punishment can work good to society, that is not Just and right in itself.

(6) It rests upon false philosophical principles,—as that utility is the ground of moral obligation; that law is an expression of the will, rather than of the nature, of God; that the aim of penalty is to deter from the commission of offences; and that righteousness is resolvable into benevolence.

Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2 : 573-581; 3 :188, 189 —" For God to take that as satisfaction which is not really such, is to say that there is no truth in anything. God may take a part for the whole, error for truth, wrong for right. The theory really denies the necessity for the work of Christ. If every created thing offered to God is worth Just so much as God accepts It for, then the blood of bulls and goats might take away sins, and Christ is dead in vain." Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 : 570, 571 (Syst. Doct,, 4 : 38-40) —" Accept Uatio Implies that nothing is good and right In itself. God is indifferent to good or evil. Man is bound by authority and force alone. There is no necessity of punishment or atonement. The doctrine of Indulgences and of supererogation logically follows."

(f) It ignores and virtually denies that immanent holiness of God of which the law with threatened penalties, and the human conscience with its demand for punishment, are only finite reflections. There is something back of government; if the atonement satisfies government, it must be by satisfying that justice of God of which government is an expression.

No deeply convicted sinner feels that his controversy is with government. Undone and polluted, he feels himself In antagonism to the purity of a personal God. Government is not greater than God, but less. What satisfies God must satisfy government. Hence the sinner prays: "Against thee, Uue only. hare I sinned " ( Pi. Si: 4); "God be propitiated toward me the sinner (literal translation of Luke 18 :13).

(d) It makes that to be an exhibition of justice which is not an exercise of justice; the atonement being, according to this theory, not an execution of law, but an exhibition of regard for law, which will make it safe to pardon the violators of law. Such a merely scenic representation can inspire respect for law, only so long as the essential unreality of it is unsuspected.

To teach that sin will be punished, there must be punishment. Potwin: "How the exhibition of what sin deserves, but does not get, can satisfy Justice, is hard to see." The Socinlan view of Christ as an example of virtue is more intelligible than the Grotian view of Christ as an example of chastisement.

(e) The intensity of Christ's sufferings in the garden and on the cross is inexplicable upon the theory that the atonement was a histrionic exhibition of God's regard for his government, and can be explained only upon the view that Christ actually endured the wrath of God against human sin.

The cry of Christ: "Mj God, mj God, whj hast thou forsaken mo" (Mat. 27 : 46), was not an ejaculation of thoughtless or delirious suffering. It expressed the deepest meaning of the crucifixion. The darkening of the heavens was only the outward symbol of the hiding of the countenance of God from him who was " made to be sin on oar behalf" (2 Cor. 5 : 21). In the case of Christ, above that of all others, Jlnis coronat, and dying words are undying words. "The tongues of dying men Enforce attention like deep harmony; When words are scarce they're seldom spent in vain. For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain." Versus Park, Discourses, 328-355.

(/) The actual power of the atonement over the human conscience and heart is due, not to its exhibiting God's regard for law, but to its exhibiting an actual execution of law, and an actual satisfaction of violated holiness made by Christ in the sinner's stead.

Matthew Henry: "Nothing can satisf y an offended conscience but that which satisfied an offended God." C. J. Baldwin: "The lake spread out has no moving; power; it turns the mill-wheel only when contracted into the narrow stream and pouring over the fall. So the wide love of God moves men, only when it is concentrated into the sacrifice of the cross."

[g) The theory contradicts all those passages of Scripture which represent the atonement as necessary; as propitiating God himself; as being a revelation of God's righteousness; as being an execution of the penalty of the law; as making salvation a matter of debt to the believer, on the ground of what Christ has done; as actually purging our sins, instead of making that purging possible; as not simply assuring the sinner that God may now pardon him on account of what Christ has done, but that Christ has actually wrought out a complete salvation, and will bestow it upon all who come to him.

John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, chapter vi —" Upon that place stood a Cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a Sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that Just as Christian came up with the Cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the Sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death. Then he stood still awhile to look and wonder; for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the Cross should thus ease him of his burden."

John Bunyan's story is truer to Christian experience than is the Governmental theory. The sinner finds peace, not by coming to God with a distant respect to Christ, but by coming directly to the "Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of th« world" (John 1: 29). Christ's words to every such sinner are simply: "Come unto me" (Mat. 11:28). Upon the ground of what Christ has done, salvation is a matter of debt to the believer. 1 John 1: 9— "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgiye us our sins "— faithf u 1 to his promise, and righteous to Christ. The Governmental theory, on the other hand, tends to discourage the sinner's direct access to Christ, and to render the way to conscious acceptance with God more circuitous and less certain. For criticism of the Grotian theory, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 2 : 347-369; Crawford, Atonement, 367; Cunningham, Hist. Theol., 2 : .355; Princeton Essays, 1:259-292; Essay on Atonement, by Abp. Thomson, in Aids to Faith; Mcllvalne, Wisdom of Holy Scripture, 194-196; S. H. Tyng, Christian Pastor.

4th. The Irvingian Theory, or Theory of Gradually Extirpated Depravity.

This holds that, in his incarnation, Christ took human nature as it was in Adam, not before the fall but after the fall,—human nature, therefore, with its inborn corruption and predisposition to moral evil; that, notwithstanding the possession of this tainted and depraved nature, Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, or of his divine nature, not only kept his human nature from manifesting itself in any actual or personal sin, but gradually purified it, through struggle and suffering, until in his death he completely extirpated its original depravity, and reunited it to God. This subjective purification of human nature in the person of Jesus Christ constitutes his atonement, and men are saved, not by any objective propitiation, but only by becoming through faith partakers of Christ's new humanity. This theory was elaborated by Edward Irving, of London (1792-1834), and it has been held, in substance, by Menken and Dippel in Germany.

Irving was in this preceded by Felix of Urgella, in Spain (+ 818), whom Alcuin opposed. Felix said that the Logos united with human nature, without sanctifying it beforehand. Edward Irving, in his early life colleague of Dr. Chalmers, at Glasgow, was in his later years a preacher, in London, of the National Church of Scotland. For his own statement of his view of the atonement, see his Collected Works, 5 :9-398. See also Life of Irving, by Mrs. Ollphant; Menken. Schrlften, 3 : 279-404; 6 :351 sq.; Guerlcke, in Studien und Kritlken, 1843 : Heft 2. For other references, see Hagenbacb, Hist. Doct., 2 : 499-498.

Irving's followers difTer in their representation of his views. Says Miller, Hist, and Doct. of Irvingism, 1 : 8fl —" If indeed we made Christ a sinner, then indeed all creeds are at an end and we are worthy to die the death of blasphemers The miraculous conception depriveth him of human personality, and it also depriveth him of original sin and guilt needing to be atoned for by another, but it doth not deprive him of the substance of sinful flesh and blood —that is, tiesh and blood the same with the tlesh and blood of his brethren." 2 :14 — Freer says: "So that, despite it was fallen tlesh he had assumed, he was, though the Eternal Spirit, born into the world 'the Holy Thing'." 11-15, 283-305--"Unfallen humanity needed not redemption, therefore Jesus did not take it. He took fallen humanity, but purged it in the act of taking it. The nature of which he took part was sinful in the lump, but in his person most holy."

So, says an Irvinglan tract, "being part of the very nature that had incurred the penalty of sin, though in his person never having committed or even thought it, part of the common humanity could sufTer that penalty, and did so suffer, to make atonement for that nature, though he who took it knew no sin." Dr. Curry, quoted in McClintock and Strong, Encyclopedia, 4 : 803, 004—"The Godhead came Into vital union with humanity fallen and under the law. The last thought carried, to Irving's realistic mode of thinking, the notion of Christ's participation in the fallen character of humanity, which he designated by terms that implied a real sinfulness in Christ. He attempted to get rid of the odlousness of that idea, by saying that this was overborne, and at length wholly expelled, by the indwelling Godhead."

We must regard the later expounders of Irvinglan doctrine as having softened down, if they have not wholly expunged, its most characteristic feature, as the following quotation from Irving's own words will show: Works, 5 : 115—"That Christ took our fallen nature, is most manifest, because there was no other in existence to take." 123—"The human nature is thoroughly fallen; the mere apprehension of it by the Son doth not make it holy." 128—" His soul did mourn and grieve and pray to God continually, that it might be delivered from the mortality, corruption, and temptation which it felt in its ilcshly tabernacle." 152—"These sufferings came not by imputation merely, but by actual participation of the sinful and cursed thing." Irving frequently quoted H»b. 2 :10 —" make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings."

Irving's followers deny Christ's sinfulness, only by assuming that inborn infirmity and congenital tendencies to evil are not sin,— in other words, that not native depravity, but only actual transgression, is to be denominated sin. Irving, in our judgment, was rightly charged with asserting the sinfulness of Christ's human nature, and it was upon this charge that lie was deposed from the ministry by the Presbyter}' in Scotland.

To this theory we offer the following objections:

(a) While it embraces an important element of truth, namely, the fact of n new humanity in Christ of which all believers become partakers, it is chargeable with serious error in denying the objective atonement which makes the subjective application possible.

Bruce, in his Humiliation of Christ, calls this a theory of " redemption by sample." It is a purely subjective atonement, which Irving has In mind. Deliverance from sin, in order to deliverance from penalty, Is an exact reversal of the Scripture order.

(6) It rests upon false fundamental principles,—as that law is identical with the natural order of the universe, and as such, is an exhaustive expression of the will and nature of God; that sin is merely a power of moral evil within the soul, instead of also involving an objective guilt and desert of punishment; that penalty is the mere reaction of law against the transgressor, instead of being also the revelation of a personal wrath against sin; that the evil taint of human nature can be extirpated by suffering its natural consequences— penalty in this way reforming the transgressor.

Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 : 463 (Syst. Doct., 3 : 381, 302)—" On Irving's theory, evil inclinations are not sinful. Sinfulness belongs only to evil acts. The looso connection between the Logos and humanity savors of Nestorianism. It is the work of the person to rid itself of something In the humanity which does not render it really sinful. If Jesus' sinfulness of nature did not render his person sinful, this must be true of us — which is a Pelagian element, revealed also in the denial that for our redemption we need Christ as an atoning sacrifice. It is not necessary to a complete Incarnation, for Christ to take & sinful nature, unless sin is cimeiMal to human nature. In Irvlng's view, the death of Christ's body works the regeneration of his sinful nature. But this is to make sin a merely physical thing, and the body the only part of man needing redemption." Penalty would thus become a reformer, and death a Savior.

(c) It contradicts the express and implicit representations of Scripture, 'with regard to Christ's freedom from all taint of hereditary depravity; misrepresents his life as a growing consciousness of the underlying corruption of his human nature, which culminated at Gethsemane and Calvary; and denies the truth of his own statements, when it declares that he must have died on account of his own depravity, even though none were to be saved thereby.

Nicoll, Life of Christ, 183 —" All others, as they grow In holiness, grow in their sense of sin. But when Christ is forsaken of the Father, he asks 'Why?' well knowing that the reason Is not in his sin. He never makes confession of sin. In bis longest prayer, the preface is an assertion of righteousness: 'I glorified tb.ee' (John 17: 4). His last utterance from the cross is a quotation from Ps. 31: 5 —' Father, into thj hands I commend mj spirit' (Luke 23: 46), but he does not add, as the Psalm does, 'thou hast redeemed me, 0 Lord Ood of truth,' for he needed no redemption, being himself the Redeemer."

(d) It makes the active obedience of Christ, and the subjective purification of his human nature, to be the chief features of his work, while the Scriptures make his death and passive bearing of penalty the centre of all, and ever regard him as one who is personally pure and who vicariously bears the punishment of the guilty.

In Irving's theory there is no imputation, or representation, or substitution. His only idea of sacrifloe is that sin itself shall be sacrificed, or annihilated. The many subjective theories of the atonement show that the offence of the cross has not ceased (Gal. 5:11 — "then hath the stumbling-block of the cross boon done awaj"). Christ crucified is still a stumblingblock to modern speculation. Yet It is, as of old, "the power of God unto salvation" (Rom. 1: M; «/. 1 Cor. 1 : 23, 24 —" we preach Christ cracited. onto the Jews a stumbling-block and unto Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God. and the wisdom of God ").

(e) It necessitates the surrender of the doctrine of justification as a merely declaratory act of God; and requires such a view of the divine holiness, expressed only through the order of nature, as can be maintained only upon principles of pantheism.

Thomas Aquinas inquired whether Christ was slain by himself, or by another. The question suggests a larger one — whether God has constituted other forces than his own, personal nnd impersonal, in the universe, over against which he stands in his tran9ccnd«nee; or whether all his activity is merged in, and Identical with, the activity of the •creature. The theory of a merely subjective atonement is more consistent with the latter view than with the former. For criticism of Irvtngian doctrine, see Studlen und Kritlken, 1845 : 319; 1877 : 354-374; Princeton Rev., April, 1863:207; Christian Rev., 28: 234 sq.; Ullmann, Sinlcssnass of Christ, 219-232.

5th. The Anselmic, or Commercial Theory of the Atonement.

This theory holds that sin is a violation of the divine honor or majesty, and, as committed against an infinite being, deserves an infinite punishment; that the majesty of God requires him to execute punishment, while the love of God pleads for the sparing of the guilty; that this conflict of divine attributes is eternally reconciled by the voluntary sacrifice of the God-man, who bears by virtue of the dignity of his person the intensively infinite punishment of sin, which must have been otherwise suffered extensively and eternally by sinners; that this suffering of the God-man presents to the divine majesty an exact equivalent for the deserved sufferings of the elect; and that as the result of this satisfaction of the divine claims, the elect sinners are pardoned and regenerated. This view was first broached by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) as a substitute for the earlier patristic view that Christ's death was a ransom paid to Satan, to deliver sinners from his power. It is held by many Scotch theologians, and, in this country, by the Princeton School.

The old patristic theory, which the Anselmie view superseded, has been called the military theory of the Atonement. Satan, as H captor in war, bad a right to his captives, which could be bought off only by ransom. It was Justin Martyr who first propounded this view that Christ paid a ransom to Satan. Gregory of Nyssa added that Christ's humanity was the bait with which Satan was attracted to the hidden book of Christ's deity, and so was caught by artifice. Peter Lombard, Sent., 3:19—" What did the Redeemer to our captor? He held out to him his cross as a mouse-trap; in it he set, as u bait, his blood." Even Luther compares Satan to the crocodile which swallows the ichneumon, only to find that the little animal eats its lnstdes out.

These metaphors show this, at least, that no age of the church has believed in a merely subjective atonement. Nor was this relation to Satan the only aspect in which the atonement was regarded even by the early church. So early as the fourth century, we find a great church Father maintaining that the death of Christ was required by the truth and goodness of God. See Crippen, History of Christian Doctrine, 129—" Athanaslus (325-373) held that the death of Christ was the payment of a debt due to God. His argument Is briefly this: God, having threatened death as the punishment of sin. would be untrue if he did not fulfil his threatening. But it would be equally unworthy of the divine goodness to permit rational beings, to whom he had imparted his own Spirit, to incur this death in consequence of an imposition practiced on them by the devil. Seeing then that nothing but death could solve this dilemma, the Word, who could not die. assumed a mortal body, and, offering his human nature a sacrifice for all, fulfilled the law by his death." Gregory Nazianzen (390) " retained the figure of a ransom, but, clearly perceiving that the analogy was Incomplete, he explained the death of Christ as an expedient to reconcile the divine attributes."

But, although many theologians had recognized a relation of atonement to God, none before Anselm had given any clear account of the nature of this relation. Anselm's acute, brief, and beautiful treatise entitled "Cur Deus Homo" constitutes the greatest single contribution to the discussion of this doctrine. He shows that "whatever man

owes, he owes to God, not to the devil He who does not yield due honor to God.

withholds from him what is his, and dishonors him; and this is sin It Is necessary

that either the stolen honor be restored, or that punishment follow." Man, because of original sin, cannot make satisfaction for the dishonor done to God —" a sinner cannot justify a sinner." Neither could an angel make this satisfaction. None can make it but God. "If then none can make it but God, and none owes It but man, it must needs be wrought out by God, made man." The God-man, to make satisfaction for the sins of all mankind, must "give to God, of his own, something that is more valuable than all that is under God." Such a gift of infinite value was his death. The reward of hia sacrifice turns to the advantage of man, and thus the justice and love of God arc reconciled.

The foregoing synopsis is mainly taken from Crippen, Hist. Christ. Doct., 134,135. The Cur Deus Homo of Anselm Is translated in Bib. Sac 11: 729; 12 :52. A synopsis of It Is given In Lichtenberger's Encyclopedic des Sciences Religleuses, Vol. 1, art.: Anselm. The treatises on the Atonement by Symington, Candlisb, Martin, Smeaton, in Great Britain, advocate for substance tho view of Anselm, as indeed it was held by Calvin before them. In America, the theory is represented by Nathanael Emmons, A. A. Alexander, and Charles Hodge (8yst. Theol., 2 : 470-510).

To this theory we make the following objections:

(a) While it contains a valuable element of truth, in its representation of the atonement as satisfying a principle of the divine nature, it conceives of this principle in too formal and external a manner,— making the idea of the divine honor or majesty more prominent than that of the divine holiness, in which the divine honor and majesty are grounded.

The theory has been called the "Criminal theory" of the Atonement, as the old patristic theory of a ransom paid to Satan has been called the "Military theory." It had Its origin In a time when exaggerated Ideas prevailed respecting the authority of popes and emperors, and when dishonor done to their majesty (crimen Icvuas majeetatis) was the highest offence known to law. See article by Cramer, in Studien und Krltiken, 1880 : 7, on Wurzeln des Anselm'schen Satisfactionsbegrlffcs.

(6) In its eagerness to maintain the atoning efficacy of Christ's passive obedience, the active obedience, quite as clearly expressed in Scripture, is well-nigh lost sight of.

Neither Christ's active obedience alone, nor Christ's obedient passion alone, can save us. As we shall see in our examination of the doctrine of justification, the latter was needed as the ground upon which our penalty could be remitted; the former as the ground upon which we might be admitted to the divine favor.

(c) It allows disproportionate weight to those passages of Scripture which represent the atonement under commercial analogies, as the payment of a debt or ransom, to the exclusion of those which describe it as an ethical fact, whose value is to be estimated not quantitatively, but qualitatively.

Milton, Paradise Lost, 3 : 209-212- " Die he, or Justice must. Unless for him some other, able and as willing. Pay the rigid satisfaction, death for death." The main text relied upon by the advocates of the Commercial theory is Hit. 20 : 28 —"gm his life a ransom for manj."

(d) It represents the atonement as having reference only to the elect,

and ignores the Scripture declarations that Christ died for all.

Anselm, like Augustine, limited the atonement to the elect. Yet Leo the Great, in 481, had affirmed that "so precious is the shedding of Christ's blood for the unjust, that If the whole universe of captives would believe In the Redeemer, no chain of the devil could hold them" (Crlppen, 132).

(e) It is defective in holding to a merely external transfer of the merit of Christ's work, while it does not clearly state the internal ground of that transfer, in the union of the believer with Christ.

In propounding what we conceive to be the true theory of the atonement, it seems desirable to divide our treatment into two parts. No theory can be satisfactory which does not furnish a solution of two problems: 1. What did the atonement accomplish? or, in other words, what was the object of Christ's death? The answer to this question must be a description of the atonement in its relation to holiness in God. 2. What were the means used? or, in other words, how could Christ justly die? The answer to this question must be a description of the atonement as arising from Christ's relation to humanity. We take up these two parts of the subject in order.

Edwards, Works, 1: 609, says that two things make Christ's sufferings a satisfaction for human guilt: (1) their equality or equivalence to the punishment that the sinner deserves; (2) the union between him and them, or the propriety of his being accepted, in suffering, as the representative of the sinner. Christ bore God's wrath: (1) by the sight of sin and punishment: (2) by enduring the effects of wrath ordered by God. See also Edwards, Sermon on the Satisfaction of Christ. These statements of Edwards suggest the two points of view from which we regard the Atonement; but they come short of the Scriptural declarations. In that they do not distinctly assert Christ's endurance of penalty Itself. Thus they leave the way open for the New School theories of the atonement, propounded by the successors of Edwards.

First,— the Atonement as related to Holiness in God.

The ethical theory holds that the necessity of the atonement is grounded in the holiness of God, of which conscience in man is a finite reflection. There is an ethical principle in the divine nature, which demands that sin shall be punished. Aside from its results, sin is essentially ill-deserving. As we who are made in God's image mark our growth in purity by the increasing quickness with which we detect impurity, and by the increasing hatred which we feel toward it, so infinite purity is a consuming fire to all iniquity. As there is an ethical demand in our natures that not only others' wickedness, but our own wickedness, be visited with punishment, and a keen conscience cannot rest till it has made satisfaction to justice for its misdeeds, so there is an ethical demand of God's nature that penalty follow sin.

Punishment is the constitutional reaction of God's being against moral evil — the self-assertion of infinite holiness against its antagonist and wouldbe destroyer. In God this demand is devoid of all passion, and is consistent with infinite benevolence. It is a demand that cannot be evaded, since the holiness from which it springs is unchanging. The atonement is therefore a satisfaction of the ethical demand of the divine nature, by the substitution of Christ's penal sufferings for the punishment of the guilty.

This substitution is unknown to mere law, and above and beyond the powers of law. It is an operation of grace. Grace, however, does not violate or suspend law, but takes it up into itself and fulfils it. The righteousness of law is maintained, in that the source of all law, the judge and punisher, himself voluntary submits to bear the penalty, and bears it in the human nature that has sinned.

Thus the atonement answers the ethical demand of the divine nature that sin be punished if the offender is to go free. The interests of the divine government are secured as a first subordinate result of this satisfaction to God himself, of whose nature the government is an expression; while, as a second subordinate result, provision is made for the needs of human nature — on the one hand the need of an objective satisfaction to its ethical demand of punishment for sin, and on the other the need of a manifestation of divine love and mercy that will affect the heart and move it to repentance.

The great classical passage with reference to the atonement is Rom. 3 : 25, 26 (Rev. Vers.) —" whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, by his blood, to shew his righteousness, because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present season: that he. might himself be just, and the jastifier of him that hath faith in Jesus." Or, somewhat more freely translated, the passage would read: —"whom God hath set forth in his blood as a propitiatory sacrifice, through faith, to show forth his righteousness oa account of the pretermission of past offenses in the forbearance of God; to declare his righteousness in the time now present, so that he may be just and yet may justify him who bslieveth in Jesus."

Exposition Op Rom. 3 : 25, 28. These verses are an expanded statement of the subject of the eplstlo —the revelation of the "righteousness of God" ( = the righteousness which God provides and which God accepts) — which had been mentioned in 1:17, but which now has new light thrown upon it by the demonstration, in 1:18 —3 :20, that both Gentiles and Jews are under condemnation, and are alike shut up for salvation to some other method than that of works. Wo subjoin the substance of Meyer's comments upon this passage.

"Verse 25. 'God has set forth Christ as an effectual propitiatory offering, through faith, by means of his blood,' i. in that he caused him to shed his blood, if r$ nbrov »n«n belongs to irpoMero, not to y!ri'o-T««. The purpose of this setting forth in his blood is «is eVieifiy iutaioovtntt ami, /' for the display of his [judicial and punitive] righteousness,' which received its satisfaction in I the death of Christ as a propitiatory offering, and was thereby practically demonstrated \ and exhibited. 'On account of the passing-by of sins that had preriously taken place,' i. e., because he had allowed the pre-Christian sins to go without punishment, whereby his righteousness had been lost sight of and obscured, and had come to need an eVoeifn, or exhibition to men. Omittance is not acquittance, irapeo-is, passing-by, is intermediate between pardon and punishment. 'In rirtne of the forbearance of God' expresses the motive of the irap«rit.

"Verse 26. «iv T6 tlvu is not epexegetical of «is irSti(iv, but presents the teleology of the iAao-Tijptoi', the final aim of the whole affirmation from hv npoi&tro to *eup<j»—namely, first, God's being just, and secondly, his appearing just in consequence of this. Justus ot Justincans, instead of Justus et condeinnans, this is the lummum paradnxon evangtWcum. Of this revelation of righteousness, not through condemnation, but through atonement, grace is the determining ground."

We repeat what was said on pages 382, 393, with regard to the teaching of the passage, namely, that it shows: (1) that Christ's death is a propitiatory sacrifice; (2) that its first and main effect is upon God; (3) that the particular attribute in God which demands the atonement is his Justice, or holiness; (4) that the satisfaction of this holiness Is the necessary condition of God's Justifying the believer. It is only incidentally and subordinated that the atonement is a necessity to man; Paul speaks of it here mainly as a necessity to God. Christ suffers, indeed, that God may appear righteous; but behind the appearance lies the reality: the main object of Christ's suffering is that God may lie righteous, while he pardons the believing sinner; in other words, the ground of the atonement is something Internal to God himself. See Heb. 2:10 —it "became" God to make Christ suffer; ef. Zech. 6:8—" They that go toward the north country have quieted my spirit in the north country "= the judgments inflicted on Babylon have satisfied my justice.

Charnock: "He who once 'quenched the violence of Ire' for those Hebrew children, has also quenched the fires of God's anger against the sinner, hotter than furnace heated seven \ times." The same God who is a God of holiness, and who in virtue of his holiness must I punish human sin, is also a God of mercy, and in virtue of his mercy himself bears the 'punishment of human sin. Dorner, Gesch. Prot. Theologie. 93— "Christ Is not only mediator between God and man, but between the just God and the merciful God" — c/. Ps. 85 :10 —" Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace hare kissed each other."

Simon, in Expositor, 6 : 331-334 (for substance)—" As in prayer we ask God to energize us and enable us to obey bis law, and he answers by entering our hearts and obeying in us and for us; as we pray for strength in affliction, and find him helping us by putting his Spirit into us, and suffering in us and for us; so in atonement, Christ, the manifested God, obeys and suffers in our.stead. Even the moral theory implies substitution also. God in us obeys his own law and bears the sorrows that sin has caused. Why can he not, in human nature, also endure the penalty of sin? The possibility of this cannot be consistently donied by any who believe in div ine help granted In answer to prayer. The doctrine of the atonement and the doctrine of prayer stand or fall together."

The ethical theory of the atonement holds that Christ stands in such a relation to humanity, that what God's holiness demands Christ is under obligation to pay, longs to pay, inevitably does pay, and pays so fully, in virtue of his twofold nature, that every claim of justice is satisfied, and the sinner who accepts what Christ has done in his behalf is saved.

We have seen how God can justly demand satisfaction; we now show how Christ can justly make it; or, in other words, how the innocent can justly suffer for the guilty. The solution of the problem lies in Christ's union with humanity. The first result of that union is obligation to suffer for men; since, being oqe with the race, Christ had a share in the responsi- v bility of the race to the law and the justice of God — a responsibility not destroyed by his purification in the womb of the Virgin. In virtue of the organic unity of the race, each member of the race since Adam has been born into the same state into which Adam fell. The consequences of Adam's sin, both to himself and to his posterity, are: (1) depravity, or the corruption of human nature; (2) guilt, or obligation to make satisfaction for sin to the divine holiness; (3) penalty, or actual endurance of loss or suffering visited by that holiness upon the guilty.

If Christ had been born into world by ordinary generation, he too would have had depravity, guilt, penalty. But ho was not so born. In the womb of the Virgin, the human nature which he took was purged from its depravity. But this purging away of depravity did not take away guilt, or penalty. There was still left the just exposure to the penalty of violated law. Although Christ's nature was purified, his obligation to suffer yet remained. He might have declined to join himself to humanity, and then he need not have suffered. He might have sundered his connection with the race, and then he need not have suffered. But once born of the Virgin, once possessed of the human nature that was under the curse, he was bound to suffer. The whole mass and weight of God's displeasure against the race fell on him, when once he became a member of the race.

Notice, however, that this guilt which Christ took upon himself by his union with humanity was: (1) not the guilt of personal sin — such guilt as belongs to every adult member of the race; ( 2 ) not even the guilt of inherited depravity — such guilt as belongs to infants, and to those who have not come to moral consciousness; but ( 3) solely the guilt of Adam's sin, which belongs, prior to personal transgression, and apart from inherited depravity, to every member of the race who has derived his life from Adam. This original sin and inherited guilt, but without the depravity that ordinarily accompanies them, Christ takes, and so takes away. He can justly bear penalty, because he inherits guilt. And since this guilt is not his personal guilt, but the guilt of that one sin in which "all sinned"— the guilt of the common transgression of the race in Adam, the guilt of the root-sin from which all other sins have sprung — he who is personally pure can vicariously bear the penalty due to the sin of all.

If it be asked whether this is not simply a suffering for his own sin, or rather for his own share of the sin of the race, we reply that his own share in the sin of the race is not the sole reason why he suffers; it furnishes only the subjective reason and ground for the proper laying upon him of the sin of all. His participation in the guilt of the race is the link of connection between his personal innocence and the bearing of the sins of the world. As in the imputation of Adam's sin to us there is a real union between us and Adam, and as in the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us there is a real union between us and Christ, so in the imputation of our sins to Christ there is a real union between Christ and humanity, which delivers that imputation from the charge of being a merely arbitrary and formal one, and explains both Christ's longing to suffer and the actual suffering which he endured.

Our treatment is intended to meet the chief modern objection to the atonement. Greg-, Creed of Christendom, 243, speaks of "the strangely Inconsistent doctrine that God Is so jutt that he could not let sin go unpunished, yet so unjuM that he could punish It

in the person of the innocent It is for orthodox dialectics to explain how the divine

justice can be impugned by pardoning the guilty, and yet rlnrltcaleil by punishing the innocent" (quoted in Lias, Atonement, M). In order to meet this difficulty, the following accounts of Christ's identification with humanity have been given:

1. That of Isaac Watts (see Bib. Sac, 1875:431). This holds that the humanity of Christ, both in body and soul, preexisted before the Incarnation, and was manifested to the patriarchs. We reply that Christ's human nature is declared to be derived from the Virgin.

2. That of R. W. Dale (Atonement, 265-440). This holds that Christ is responsible for human sin because, as the Upholder and Life of all, he is naturally one with all men, and Is spiritually one with all believers (icta 17 : 28—"in him we live, and mora, and have our being "; Col. 1:17—"in him all thing! consist"; John 14 : 20 —"I am in mj Father, and ye in me, and I in jon"). We reply that this upholding can make Christ responsible for sin only upon the pantheistic assumption that it involves his cooperation with sin. If Christ's bearing our sins, moreover. Is to be explained by the union of the believer with Christ, the effect is made to explain the cause, and Christ could have died only for the elect (see a review of Dale, In Brit. Quar. Rev., Apr., 1878 : 221-225).

3. That of Edward Irving. Christ has a corrupted nature, an Inborn infirmity and depravity which he gradually overcomes. But the Scriptures, on the contrary, assert his holiness and separateness from sinners. (See references on pages 405-407).

4. That of John Miller (Was Christ in Adam? in Questions Awakened by the Bible). Christ, as to his human nature, although created pure, was yet. as one of Adam's posterity, conceived of as a sinner in Adam. To him attached " the guilt of the act in which

all men stood together in a federal relation He was decreed to be guilty for the

sins of all mankind." Although there Is a truth contained in this statement, it Is vitiated by Miller's federalism and creatlonlsm. Arbitrary imputation and legal fiction do not help us here. We need such an actual union of Christ with humanity, and such a derivation of the substance of his being, by natural generation from Adam, as will make him not simply the constructive heir, but the natural heir, of the guilt of the race. We come, therefore, to what we regard as the true view, namely:

5. That the humanity of Christ was not a new creation, but was derived from Adam, through Mary his mother; so that Christ, so far as his humanity was concerned, was in Adam just as we were, and had the same race-responsibility with ourselves. As Adam's descendant, he was responsible for Adam's sin, like every other member of the race; the chief difference being, that while we Inherit from Adam both guilt and depravity, he whom the Holy Spirit purified, inherited not the depravity, but only the guilt. Christ took to himself, not sin (depravity), but the consequences of sin. In him there was abolition of sin, without abolition of obligation to suffer for sin; while in the believer, there is abolition of obligation to suffer, without abolition of sin Itself.

The justice of Christ's sufferings has been imperfectly illustrated by the obligation of the silent partner of a business firm to pay debts of the firm which he did not personally contract; or by the obligation of the husband to pay the debts of his wife; or by the obligation of a purchasing country to assume the debts of the province which It purchases (Win. ABhmore). There have been men who have spent the strength of a lifetime in clearing off the Indebtedness of an Insolvent father, long since deceased. They recognized an organic unity of the family, which morally, If not legally, made their fathers' liabilities their own. So, it is said. Christ recognized the organic unity of the race, and saw that, having become one of that sinning race, he had involved himself In all 1U liabilities, even to the suffering of death, the great penalty of sin.

The fault of all the analogies just mentioned is that they are purely commercial. A transference of pecuniary obligation is easier to understand than a transference of criminal liability. I cannot justly bear another's penalty, unless I can In some way 'share his guilt. The theory we advocate shows how such a sharing of our guilt on the part of Christ was possible. All believers In substitution hold that Christ bore our guilt: "My soul looks back to see The burdens thou didst boar When hanging on the accursed tree. And hopes her guilt was there." But we claim that, by virtue of Christ's union with humanity, that guilt was not only an imputed, but also an imparted, guilt.

With Christ's obligation to suffer, there were connected two other, though minor, results of his assumption of humanity: first, the longing to suffer; and secondly, the inevitableness of his suffering. He felt the longing to suffer which perfect love to God must feel. In view of the demands upon the race, of that holiness of God which he loved more than he loved the race itself; which perfect love to man must feel, in view of the fact that bearing the penalty of man's sin was the only way to save him. Hence we see Christ pressing forward to the cross with such majestic determination that the disciples were amazed and afraid (Mark 10 : 32). Hence we hear him saying: "With desire lure I desired to eat this passorer" ( Like 22:15); "I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" ( Lake 12 : 50 ).

Here is the truth in Campbell's theory of the atonement. Christ is the great Penitent before God, making confession of the sin of the race, which others of that race could neither see nor feel. But the view we present Is a larger and completer one than that of Campbell, in that it makes this confession and reparation obligatory upon Christ, as Campbell's view does not, and recognizes the penal nature of Christ's sufferings, which Campbell's view denies. Lias, Atonement, "9—"The head of a clan, himself intensely loyal to his king, finds that his clan have been involved in rebellion. The more intense and perfect his loyolty, the more thorough his nobleness of heart and affection for his people, the more inexcusable and flagrant the rebellion of those for whom he pleads,— the more acute would be his agony, as their representative and head. Nothing would be more true to human nature, in the best sense of those words, than that the conflict between loyalty to his king and affection for his vassals should induce him to offer his life for theirs, to ask that the punishment they deserved should be Inflicted on him."

The second minor consequence of Christ's assumption of humanity was, that, being such as lie was, he could not help suffering; in other words, the obligatory and the desired were also the inevitable. Since he was a being of perfect purity, contact with the sin of the race, of which he was a member, necessarily involved an actual suffering, of an intenser kind than we can conceive. Sin is self-isolating, but love and righteousness have in them the Instinct of human unity. In Christ all the nerves and sensibilities of humanity met. He was the only healthy member of the race. When life returns to a frozen limb, there is pain. So Christ, as the only sensitive member of a benumbed and stupefied humanity, felt all the pongs of shame and suffering which rightfully belonged to sinners; but which they could not feel, simply because of the depth of their depravity. Because Christ was pure, yet had united himself to a sinful and guilty race, therefore "it most needs be that Christ should suffer" (A. V.), or, "it behoved the Christ to suffer" (Kev. Vers., Acts 17 : 3); see also John 3 :14 —" so must the Son of man be lifted up " = " The Incarnation, under the actual circumstances of humanity, carried with it the necessity of the Passion " (Westcott, in Bib. Com., in !/ic»).

Compare John Woolman's Journal, *, 5—" O Lord, my God, the amazing horrors of darkness were gathered about me, and covered me all over, and I saw no way to go forth; I felt the depth and extent of the misery of my fellow creatures, separated from the divine harmony, and it was greater than I could bear, and I was crushed down under it; I lifted up my head, I stretched out my arm, but there was none to help me; I looked round about, and was amazed. In the depths of misery, I remembered that thou art omnipotent and that I had called thee Father." He had vision of a "dull, gloomy mass," darkening half the heavens, and he was told that it was "human beings, in as great misery as they could be and live; and he was mixed with them, and henceforth he might not consider himself a distinct and separate being."

This suffering in and with the sins of men, which Dr. Bushnell emphasized so strongly. thou if h It is not, as he thought, the principal element. Is notwithstanding an Indispensable element in the atonement of Christ. Suffering in and with the sinner is one way, though not the only way, in which Christ is enabled to bear the wrath of God which constitutes the real penalty of sin.

Exposition Op 2 Cor. 5 : 21. It remains for us to adduce the Scriptural proof of this natural assumption of human guilt by Christ. We And it in 2 Cor. 5 : 21— "Him who know no sin be made to be sin on our behalf; that To might become the righteousness of God in him." "Righteousness" here cannot mean subjective purity, for then "made to bo sin" would mean thatGod made Christ to be subjectively depraved. As Christ was not made unholy, the meaning cannot be that we are made holy persons in him. Meyer calls attention to this parallel between "righteousness" and "sin":—"That we might become the righteousness of God in him" — that we might become Justified persons. Correspondingly, "made to be sin on our behalf" must = made to be a condemned person. So, in Gal. 3 :13, "harag become a curse for us" = having become a cursed person. "Him who knew no sin " = Christ had no experience of sin — this was the necessary postulate of his work of atonement. "Made sin for us," therefore, i9 the abstract for the concrete, and — made a sinner, in the sense that the penalty of sin fell upon him. So Meyer, for substance.

We must, however, regard this interpretation of Meyer's as coming short of the full meaning of the apostle. As Justification Is not simply remission of actual punishment, but is also deliverance from the obligation to suffer punishment — in other words, as "righteousness" in the text = persons delivered from the guilt as well as from the penally of sin,—so the contrasted term "sin," in the text,= a person not only actually punished, but also under obligation to suffer punishment;—In other words, Christ is "made sin," not only in the sense of being put under penalty, but also In the sense of being put under guilt.

In a note to the last edition of Meyer, this is substantially granted. "It is to be noted," he says, "that inapriav, like ««Tdoa in Gal. 3:13, necessarily includes in Itself the notion of guilt." Meyer adds, however: "The guilt of which Christ appears as bearer was not his own (yvovra ifiapriaf); hence the guilt of men was transferred to him; consequently the justification of men is imputative." Here the Implication that the guilt which Christ bears is his simply by imputation seems to us contrary to the analogy of faith. As Adam's sin is ours only because we are actually one with Adam, and as Christ's righteousness is imputed to us only as we are actually united to Christ, so our sins are Imputed to Christ only as Christ is actually one with the race. He was "made sin" by being made one with the sinners; he took our guilt by taking our nature. He who "knew no sin" came to be "sin for us" by being born of a sinful stock; by inheritance the common guilt of the race became his. Guilt was not simply imputed to Christ; it was impartetl also.

Melancthon: "Christ was made sin for us, not only in respect to punishment, but primarily by being chargeable with guilt also (cu/jxe el realm) "—quoted by Thomasius, Christi Person und Work, 3 : 95, MB, 103,107; also 1: 807, 314 «q. Thomaslus says that "Christ bore the guilt of the race by imputation; but as in the case of the imputation of Adam's sin to us, imputation of our sins to Christ presupposes a real relationship. Christ appropriated our sin. He sank himself into our guilt." Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 : 442 (Syst. Doct., 3 : 350, 351), agrees with Thomaslus, that "Christ entered into our natural mortality, which for us Is a penal condition, and Into the state of collective guilt, so fur as It is an evil, a burden to be borne; not that ho had personal guilt, but rather that he entered into our guilt-laden common life, not as a stranger, but as one actually belonging to it — put under its law, according to the will of the Father and of his own love." ■

When, and how, did Christ take this guilt and this penalty upon him? With regard to penalty, we have no difficulty in answering that, as his whole life of suffering was propitiatory, so penalty rested upon him from the very beginning of his life. This penalty was inherited, and was the consequence of Christ's taking human nature (Gal. 4:4, 5 —"born of a woman, born under the law"). But penalty and guilt are correlates; if Christ inherited penalty, It must have been because he inherited guilt. This subjection to the common guilt of the race was intimated in Jesus' circumcision (Luke 2 :21); in his ritual purification (Luke 2:22 —" their purification "— (. e. the purification of Mary and the babe; see Lange, Life of Christ; Commentaries of Alford, Webster, and Wilkinson; and An. Par. Bible); in his legal redemption (Luke 2 : 23, 24; cf. Hi. 13 : 2,13); and in his baptism (Mat. 3 :15 —" thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness " ). The baptized person went down into the water, as one laden with sin and guilt, in order that this sin and guilt might be buried forever, and that he might rise from the typical grave to a new and holy life. (Ebrard: "Baptlsm = death " ). So Christ's submission to John's baptism of repentance was not only a consecration to death, but also a recognition and confession of bis implication in that guilt of the race for which death was the appointed and inevitable penalty (cf. Mat. 10: 38; Lake 12: 50; Mat 28 : 39); and, as his baptism was a preflguration of his death, we may learn from his baptism something with regard to the meaning of his death.

As one who hud had guilt, Christ was 11 justified in the spirit" (1 Tim. 3: It); and this Justification appears to have taken place after he "was manifested in the flesh" (i Tim. 3:16), and when "he was raised for our justification" (Rom. 4 : 25). Compare Rom. 1: 4—"declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead "; 6 : 7-10 —"he that hath died is justified from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also lire with htm; knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died nnto sin once: hat the life that he liveth, he lireth onto God"— here all Christians are conceived of as ideally justified in the Justification of Christ, when Christ died for our sins and rose again. 8:3 —" God, sending his own in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh "— here Meyer says: "The sending does not precede the condemnation; but the condemnation is effected in and with the sending." John 16 :10 —" of righteousness, because I go to the father "; 19 : 30 —" It is Inished." On 1 Tim. 3 :16, see the Commentary of Bengel.

If it be asked whether Jesus, then, before his death, was an unjustified person, we answer that, while personally pure and well-pleasing to Ood (Mat 3 :17), he himself was conscious of a race-responsibility and a race-guilt which must be atoned for (John 12: 27 —" low is ray soul troubled; and what shall I say? father, save me from this hoar. Bat for this cause came I unto this hour); and that guilty human nature in him endured at the last the separation from God which constitutes the essence of death, sin's penalty (Mat 27 : 46—"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me"). We must remember that, as even the believer must "be judged according to men in the flesh" (1 Pet 4: 6), that is, must suffer the death which to unbelievers Is the penalty of sin, although he "live according to God in the Spirit," so Christ, in order that we might be delivered from both guilt and penalty, was "put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit" (3:18); — in other words, as Christ was man, the penalty due to human guilt belonged to him to bear; but, as he was God, he could exhaust that penalty, and could be a proper substitute for others.

If It be asked whether he, who from the moment of the conception "sanctified himself" (John 17:19), did not from that moment also Justify himself, we reply that although, through the retroactive efficacy of his atonement and upon the ground of it, human nature in him was purged of its depravity from the moment that he took that nature; and although, upon the ground of that atonement, believers before his advent were both sanctified and Justified; yet his own Justification could not have proceeded upon the ground of his atonement, and also his atonement have proceeded upon the ground of his Justification. This would be a vicious circle; somewhere we must have a beginning. That beginning was in the cross, where guilt was first purged (Heb. 1:3—" when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high "; Mat 27 : 42 —" he saved others; himself he cannot save"; cf. Rev. 13 : 8—"the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world."

If it be said that guilt and depravity are practically inseparable, and that, if Christ had guilt, he must have had depravity also, we reply that In civil law we distinguish between them — the conversion of a murderer would not remove his obligation to suffer upon the gallows; and we reply further, that in Justification we distinguish between them — depravity still remaining, though guilt is removed. So we may say that Christ takes guilt without depravity, in order that we may have depravity without guilt. See page 346; also Biihl, Incarnation des gOttlichen Wortes; Pope, Higher Catechism, 118.

In favor of the substitutionary or ethical view of the atonement we may urge the following considerations.

(a) It rests upon correct philosophical principles with regard to the nature of will, law, sin, peualty, righteousness.

This theory holds that there are permanent states, as well as transient acts, of the will; and that the will Is not simply the faculty of volitions, but also the fundamental determination of the being to an ultimate end. Tt regards law as having its basis, not in arbitrary will or in governmental expediency, but rather in the nature of God, and as being a necessary transcript of God's holiness. It considers sin to consist not simply in acts, but In permanent evil states of the affections and will. It makes the object of penalty to be, not the reformation of the offender, or the prevention of evil doing, but the vindication of justioe, outraged by violation of law. It teaches that righteousness is not benevolence or a form of benevolence, but a distinct and separate attribute of the divine nature which demands that sin should be visited with punishment, apart from any consideration of the useful results that will flow therefrom.

(6) It combines in itself all the valuable elements in the theories before mentioned, while it avoids their inconsistencies, by showing the deeper principle upon which each of these elements is based.

The ethical theory admits the Indispensableness of Christ's example, advocated by the Socinian theory; the moral influence of his suffering:, urged by the Bushnelllan theory; the securing- of the safety of government. Insisted on by the Grotian theory; the participation of the believer in Christ's new humanity, taught by the Irvingian theory; the satisfaction to God's majesty for the elect, made so much of by the Anselmic theory. But the ethical theory claims that all these other theories require, as a presupposition for their effective working-, that ethical satisfaction to the holiness of God which is Tendered in guilty human nature by the Son of God who took that nature to redeem it.

(c) It most fully meets the requirements of Scripture, by holding that the necessity of the atonement is absolute, since it rests upon the demands of immanent holiness, the fundamental attribute of God.

Acts 17 : 3 —" It behoved the Christ to suffer, Mid to rise again from the dead"— lit.: "it was neoessarj for the Christ to suffer "; Luke U ■ 26 —" Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glorj ? "— lit.: "»as it not neoessarj that the Christ should suffer these things." It Is not enough to say that Christ must suffer In order that the prophecies might be fulfilled. Why was it prophesied that he should suffer? Why did God purpose that he should suffer? The ultimate necessity is a necessity in the nature of God.

(d) It shows most satisfactorily how the demands of holiness are met; namely, by the propitiatory offering of one who is personally pure, but who by union with the human race has inherited its guilt aud penalty.

"Quo non ascendam't"— whither shall I not rise? exclaimed the greatest minister of modern kings, in a moment of intoxication. "Whither shall I not stoop?" says the Lord Jesus. King Humbert, during the scourge of cholera in Italy: "In Caste)mare they make merry; In Naples they die: I go to Naples."

(e) It furnishes the only proper explanation of the sacrificial language of the New Testament, and of the sacrificial rites of the Old, considered as prophetic of Christ's atoning work.

(/) It alone gives proper place to the death of Christ as the central feature of his work,— set forth in the ordinances, and of chief power in Christian experience.

(ff) It gives us the only means of understanding the sufferings of Christ in the garden and on the cross, or of reconciling them with the divine justice.

Krclbig, VersHhnungslohre: "Man has a guilt that demands the punitive sufferings of a mediator. Christ shows a suffering that cannot be Justified except by reference to tone other guilt than his own. Combine these two facts, and you have the problem of the atonement solved."

(A) As no other theory does, this view satisfies the ethical demand of human nature; pacifies the convicted conscience; assures the sinner that he may find instant salvation in Christ; and so makes possible a new life of holiness, while at the same time it furnishes the highest incentives to such a life.

Shedd: "The offended party (1) permits a substitution; (2) provides a substitute: < 3) substitutes himself." George Eliot: "Justice Is like the kingdom of God; it Is not without us, as a fact: It is ' within us,' as a great yearning'." But It Is both without and within, and the Inward Is only the reflection of the outward; the subjective demands of conscience only reflect the objective demands of holiness.

And yet, while this view of the atonement exalts the holiness of God, it surpasses every other view in its moving exhibition of God's love —a love that is not satisfied with suffering- in and with the sinner, or with making: that suffering- a demonstration of God's regard for law; but a love that sinks itself into the sinner's guilt and bears his penalty — comes down so low as to make itself one with him in all but his depravity — makes every sacrifice but the sacrifice of God's holiness—a sacrifice which God could not make, without ceasing to be God; see 1 John 4 :10 —" Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved oa, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

D. Objections to the Ethical Theory of the Atonement.

On tho general subject of these objections, Phillppl, Glaubenslehre, rv. 2:166-180, remarks: (1) that It rests with God alone to say whether he will pardon sin, and in what way he will pardon It; (2) that human instincts are a very unsafe standard by which to judge the procedure of the Governor of the universe; and (3) that one plain declaration of God, with regard to the plan of salvation, proves the fallacy and error of all reasonings against it. We must correct our watches and clocks by astronomic standards.

(a) That a God who does not pardon sin -without atonement must lack either omnipotence or love. — We answer, on the one hand, that God's omnipotence is the revelation of his nature, and not a matter of arbitrary will; and, on the other hand, that God's love is ever exercised consistently with his fundamental attribute of holiness, so that while holiness demands the sacrifice, love provides it. Mercy is shown, not by trampling upon the claims of justice, but by vicariously satisfying them.

Because man does not need to avenge personal wrongs, it does not follow that God must not. In fact, such avenging is forbidden to us upon the ground that it belongs to God; Rom. 12 :19— "Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto wrath: for it is written, Tengeanc* belongeth unto me; I will rewmpense, saith the Lord." But there are limits even to our passing over of offences. Even the father must sometimes chastise; and although this chastisement is not properly punishment, it becomes punishment, when the father becomes a teacher or a governor. Then, other than personal Interests come in. "Because a father can forgive without atonement, it does not follow that the state can do the same " (Shedd). But God is more than Father, more than Teacher, more than Governor. In him, person and right are identical. For him to let sin go unpunished is to approve of it; which is the same as a denial of holiness.

Whatever pardon is granted, then, must be pardon through punishment. Mere repentance never expiates crime, even under civil government. The truly penitent man never feels that his repentance constitutes a ground of acceptance; the more he repents, the more he recognizes his need of reparation and expiation. Hence God meets the demand of man's conscience, as well as of his own holiness, when he provides a substituted punishment. God shows his love by meeting the demands of holiness, and by meeting them with the sacrifice of himself. See Mozley on Predestination, 390.

(6) That satisfaction and forgiveness are mutually exclusive.—We answer that, since it is not a third party, but the Judge himself, who makes satisfaction to his own violated holiness, forgiveness is still optional, and may be offered upon terms agreeable to himself. Christ's sacrifice is not a. pecuniary, but a penal, satisfaction. The objection is valid against the merely commercial view of the atonement, not against the ethical view of it.

Forgiveness is something beyond the mere taking away of penalty. When a man bears the penalty of his crime, has the community no right to be Indignant with him? There Is a distinction between pecuniary and penal satisfaction. Pecuniary satisfaction has respect only to the thing due; penal satisfaction has respect also to the person of the offender. If pardon Is a matter of justice in God's government, it is so only as respects Christ. To the recipient It Is only mercy. "Faithful and righteous to forgive as oar sins" (1 John 1:9) = faithful to his promise, and righteous to Christ. Neither the atonement, nor the promise, gives the offender any personal claim.

Philemon must forgive Onesimus the pecuniary debt, when Paul pays it; not so with the personal injur)/ Onesimus has done to Philemon; there is no forgiveness of this, until Onesimus repents and asks pardon. An amnesty may be offered to all, but upon conditions. Instance Amos Lawrence's offering to the forger the forged paper he had bought up, upon condition that he would confess himself bankrupt, and put all his affairs Into the hands of his benefactor. So the fact that Christ has paid our debts does not preclude his offering to us the benefit of what he has done, upon condition of our repentance and faith. The equivalent Is not furnished by man, but by God. God may therefore offer the results of it upon his own terms. See Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 296, note, and 321; Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2 :614, 615 (Syst. Doct., 4 : 82, 88).

(c) That there can be no real propitiation, since the judge and the sacrifice are one.—We answer that this objection ignores the existence of personal relations within the divine nature, and the fact that the God-man is distinguishable from God. The satisfaction is grounded in the distinction of persons in the Godhead; while the love in which it originates belongs to the unity of the divine essence.

The satisfaction Is not rendered to a part- of the Godhead, for the whole Godhead Is In the Father, In a certain manner; as omnipresence = totus in umni parte. So the offering is perfect, because the whole Godhead Is also in Christ (2 Cor. S : 19— "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself"). ,

(d) That the suffering of the innocent for the guilty is not an execution of justice, but an act of manifest injustice.—We answer, that this is true only upon the supposition that the Son bears the penalty of our sins, not voluntarily, but compulsorily; or upon the supposition that one who is personally innocent can in no way become involved in the guilt and penalty of others — both of them hypotheses contrary to Scripture and to fact.

The mystery of the atonement lies in the fact of unmerited sufferings on the part of Christ. Over against this stands the corresponding mystery of unmerited pardon to believers. We have attempted to show that, while Christ was personally innocent, he was so Involved with others in the consequences of the fall, that the guilt and penalty of the race belonged to him to bear. When we discuss the doctrine of justification, we shall see that, by a similar union of the believer with Christ, Christ's Justification becomes ours.

(e) That there can be no transfer of punishment or merit, since these are personal.—We answer that the idea of representation and suretyship is common in human society and government; and that such representation and suretyship are inevitable, wherever there is community of life between the innocent and the guilty. When Christ took our nature, he could not do otherwise than take our responsibilities also.

Christ became responsible for the humanity with which he was organically one. Roth poets and historians have recognized the propriety of one member of a house, or a race, answering for another. Antigone expiates the crimes of her house. Quintius Curtius holds himself ready to die for his nation. Louis XVI has been called a "sacrificial lamb," offered up for the crimes of his race. So Christ's sacrifice is of benefit to the whole family of man, because he Is one with that family. But here Is the limitation, also. It does not extend to angels, because he took not on him the nature of angels (Eeb. 2 :16—"For verily not of the angels doth he take hold, but he taluth hold of the seed of Abraham."

(/) That remorse, as a part of the penalty of sin, could not have been suffered by Christ.—We answer, on the one hand, that it may not be essential to the idea of penalty that Christ should have borne the identical pangs which the lost would have endured; and, on the other hand, that we do not know how completely a perfectly holy being, possessed of superhuman knowledge and love, might have felt even the pangs of remorse for the condition of that humanity of which he was the central conscience and heart.

Instance the lawyer, mourning the fall of a star of Ills profession; the woman, filled with shame by the degradation of one of her own sex; the father, anguished by his daughter's waywardness; the Christian, crushed by the sins of the church and the world. The self-isolating spirit cannot conceive how perfectly lovo and holiness can make their own the sin of the race of which they are a part.

(g) That the sufferings of Christ, as finite in time, do not constitute a satisfaction to the infinite demands of the law.—We answer that the infinite dignity of the sufferer constitutes his sufferings a full equivalent, in the eye of infinite justice. Substitution excludes identity of suffering; it does not exclude equivalence. Since justice aims its penalties not so much at the person as at the sin, it may admit equivalent suffering, when this is endured in the very nature that has sinned.

The sufferings of a dog, and of a man, have different values. Death Is the wages of sin; and Christ, in suffering death, suffered our penalty. Eternity of suffering is unessential to the Idea of penalty. A finite being cannot exhaust an infinite curse; but an infinite being can exhaust it, in a few brief hours. Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 307—"A golden eagle Is worth a thousand copper cents. The penalty paid by Christ is strictly and literally equivalent to that which the sinner would have borne, although it is not identical. The vicarious bearing of it excludes the latter."

The atonement is a unique fact, only partially Illustrated by debt and penalty. Yet the terms 'purchase' and 'ransom' are Scriptural, and mean simply that the justice of God punishes sin as it deserves; and that, having determined what is deserved, God cannot change. See Owen, quoted by Campbell on Atonement, 58, 5». Christ's sacrifice, since it is absolutely Infinite, can have nothing added to it. If Christ's sacrifice satisfies the Judge of all, it may well satisfy us.

(A) That if Christ's passive obedience made satisfaction to the divine justice, then his active obedience was superfluous.— We answer that the active obedience and the passive obedience are inseparable. The latter is essential to the former; and both are needed to secure for the sinner, on the one hand, pardon, and, on the other hand, that which goes beyond pardon, namely, restoration to the divine favor. The objection holds only against a superficial and external view of the atonement.

For more full exposition of this point, see under Justification; and also, Owen, In Works, 5:175-20*.

(i) That the doctrine is immoral in its practical tendencies, since Christ's obedience takes the place of ours, and renders ours unnecessary.—We answer that the objection ignores not only the method by which the benefits of the atonement are appropriated, namely, repentance and faith, but also the regenerating and sanctifying power bestowed upon all who believe. Faith in the atonement does not induce license, but "works by love" (Gal. 5:6) and "cleanses the heart" (Acts 15:9).

Water is of little use to a thirsty man, if he will not drink. The faith which accepts Christ ratifies all that Christ has done, and takes Christ as a uew principle of life.

(j) That if the atonement requires faith as its complement, then it does not in itself furnish a complete satisfaction to God's justice.—We answer that faith is not the ground of our acceptance with God, as the atonement is, and so is not a work at all; faith is only the medium of appropriation. We are saved not by faith, or on account of faith, but only through faith. It is not faith, but the atonement which faith accepts, that satisfies the justice of God.

Illustrate by tbe amnesty granted to a city, upon conditions to be accepted by eacb inhabitant. Tbe acceptance Is not the ground upon which the amnesty Is granted; it is the medium through which the benefits of the amnesty are enjoyed. With regard to the difficulties connected with the atonement, we may say, in conclusion, with Bishop Butler: "If the Scripture has, as surely it has, left this matter of the satisfaction of Christ mysterious, left somewhat in it unrevealed, all conjectures about it must be, if not evidently absurd, yet at least uncertain. Nor has any one reason to complain for want of further information, unless he can show his claim to it." While we cannot say with President Stearns: "Christ's work removed the hindrances in the eternal Justice of the universe to the pardon of the sinner, but hmc we cannot tell"— cannot say this* because we believe the main outlines of the plan of salvation to be revealed in Scripture

— yet we grant that many questions yet remain unsolved. But, as bread nourishes even those who know nothing of its chemical constituents, or of the method of its digestion and assimilation, so the atonement of Christ saves those who accept it, even though they do not know how it saves them.

The Scriptures represent the atonement as having been made for all men, and as sufficient for the salvation of all. Not the atonement therefore is limited, but the application of the atonement through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Upon this principle of an universal atonement, but a special application of it to the elect, we must interpret such passages as Eph. 1 : 4, 7; 2 Tim. 1:9, 10; John 17 : 9, 20, 24 — asserting a special efficacy of the atonement in the case of the elect; and also such passages as 2 Pet. 2:1; 1 John 2 : 2; 1 Tim. 2:6; 4 :10; Tit. 2 :11 — asserting that the death of Christ is for all.

Passages asserting special efficacy of the atonement, in the case of the elect, are the following: Eph. 1:4—" chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love"; 7—"in whom we have oar redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace ": 2 Tim. i: 9,10 — God "who sared us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal, but hath now been manifested by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel"; John 17 : 9 —" I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me "; 20 —" neither for these only do 1 pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word "; 24 —" Father, that which thou hast given me, 1 desire that, where 1 am, they also may be with me; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me."

Passages asserting that the death of Christ is for all are the following: 2 Pet. 2:1 —" false teachers, who shall privily bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Vaster that bought them "; 1 John 2 : 2—"and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world"; 1 Tim. 2 ; 6

— Christ Jesus "who gave himself a ransom for all"; 4 :10 —" the living God, who is the Savior of all men, specially of them that believe "; Tit, 2 :11 —" For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men." Rom. 3 : 22 (A. V.) — "unto all and upon all them that believe"— has sometimes been interpreted as meaning "unto all men, and upon all believers" («is = destination; = extent). But the Rev. Vers, omits the words "and upon all," and Meyer, who retains the words, remarks that Tou« irio-T«voiTav belongs to iravras in both instances.

If it be asked in what sense Christ is the Savior of all men, we reply: (a) That the atonement of Christ secures for all men a delay in the execution of the sentence against sin, and a space for repentance, together with a continuance of the common blessings of life which have been forfeited by transgression.

If strict justice had been executed, the race would have been cut off at the first sin. That man lives after sinning, Is due wholly to the cross. There is a pretermission, or "passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God" (Rom. 3 : 25), the justification of which is found only in the sacrifice of Calvary. This "passing orer." however, is limited in its duration: see Act* 17 : 30, 31 —"The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; bnt nov he eommandeth men that they should all everywhere repent: inasmuch as he hath appointed a daj, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained."

(6) That the atonement of Christ has made objective provision for the

salvation ef all, by removing from the divine mind every obstacle to the

pardon and restoration of sinners, except their wilful opposition to God and

refusal to turn to him.

Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 804—"On God's side, all is now taken away which could make a separation—unless any should themselves choose to remain separated from him." The ifospel message is not: God will forgive if you return; but rather: God has shown mercy; only believe, and it Is your portion in Christ.

(r') That the atonement of Christ has procured for all men the powerful incentives to repentance presented in the cross, and the combined agency of the Christian church and of the Holy Spirit, by whioh these incentives are brought to bear upon them.

Just as much sun and rain would be needed, if only one farmer on earth were to be benefited. Christ would not need to suffer more, If all were to be saved. His sufferings, as we have seen, were not the payment of a pecuniary debt. Having endured the penalty of the sinner, Justice permits the sinner's discharge, but does not require it, except as the fulfilment of a promise to his substitute, and then only upon the appointed condition of repentance and faith. The atonement is unlimited — the whole human race might be saved through it; the application of the atonement is limited — only those who repent and believe are actually saved by it.

Christ is specially the Savior of those who believe, in that he exerts a special power of his Spirit to procure their acceptance of his salvation. This is not, however, a part of his work of atonement; it is the application of the atonement, and as such is hereafter to be considered.

Among those who hold to a limited atonement is Owen. Campbell quotes him as saying: "Christ did not die for all the sins of all men; for if this were so, why are not all freed from the punishment of all their sins? You will say, * Because of their unbelief— they will not believe.' But this unbelief is a sin, and Christ was punished for It. Why then does this, more than other sins, hinder them from partaking of the fruits of his death?"

The Priesthood of Christ does not cease with his work of atonement, but continues forever. In the presence of God he fulfils the second office of the priest, namely that of intercession.

Heb. 7 : 23-25 —" Priests many in number, because that by death they are hindered from continuing: but he, because he abideth forever, hath bis priesthood unchangeable. Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." C. H. M. on Ex. 17 :12 —" The bands of our great Intercessor never hang down as Moses' did, nor does he need any one to hold them up. The same rod of God's power which was used by Moses to smite the rock (Atonement) was in Mosos' hand on the hill (Intercession)."

A. Nature of Christ's Intercession. — This is not to be conceived of «ither as an external and vocal petitioning, nor as a mere figure of speech for the natural and continuous influence of his sacrifice; but rather as a special activity of Christ in securing, upon the ground of that sacrifice, whatever of blessing comes to men, whether that blessing be temporal or spiritual.

1 John 2 :1 —"If any man sin, we hire an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous"; Rom. 8 : 34—"It is Christ Jems that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us" — here Meyer seems to favor the meaning of external and vocal petitioning, as of the glorified God-man: Heb. 7 : 25— "ever liveth to nuke intercession for them.'' On the ground of this effectual Intercession he can pronounce the true sacerdotal hcnedicttnn; and all the benedictions of his ministers and apostles are but fruits and emblems of this (see the Aaronic benediction in Hum. 6 : 24-26, and the apostolic benedictions in 1 Cor. 1:3 and 2 Cor. 13 :14).

B. Objects of Christ's Intercession. — We may distinguish (a) that general intercession which secures to all men certain temporal benefits of his atoning work, and (6) that special intercession which secures the divine acceptance of the persons of believers and the divine bestowment of all gifts needful for their salvation.

(a) General intercession for all men: Is. 53 :12—"He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors"; Luke 23 : 34—"And Jesus said, Father, forgire them; for they know not what thej do"—a beginning of his priestly intercession, even while he was being nailed to the cross.

(!>) Special intercession for his saints: Mat. 18 :19, 20 —" If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them"; Luke 22 : 32 —"Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to hare you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I made supplication for thee that thy faith fail not"; -John 14 :16 —" I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter "; 17: 9 —" I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me "; Acts 2 : 33 —" Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath poured forth this which ye see and hear": Eph. 1: 6—" the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved "; 2:18—"through him we both have our access in one Spirit unto the Father"; 3:12— "in whom we have boldness and access in confidence through our faith in him "; Heb, 2 :17,18 —" Wherefore it behoved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted "; 4 :15,16 —" For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like ss we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find greoe to help us in time of need "; 1 Pet 2 : 5 —"a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ"; Rev, 5:6 —" And I saw in the midst of the throne ... a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth"; 7 :16,17—"They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat; for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne-shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life: and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes."

C. Relation of Christ's Intercession to that of the Holy Ghost.— The Holy Spirit is an advocate within us, teaching us what to pray for as we ought; Christ is an advocate in heaven, securing from the Father the answer of our prayers. Thus the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit are complements to each other, and parts of one whole.

John 14 : 26 —"But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you ill things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you "; Rom. 8 : 26 —" And in like manner the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity: for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groenings which cannot be uttered "; 27—" and he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God."

The intercession of the Holy Spirit may be illustrated by the work of the mother, who teaches her child to pray by putting words Into his mouth or by suggesting subjects for prayer. "The whole Trinity is present in the Christian's closet: the Father bears; the Son advocates his cause at the Father's right hand; the Holy Spirit intercedes in the heart of the believer." Therefore "When God inclines the heart to pray. He hath an ear to hear." The Impulse to prayer, within our hearts, is evidence that Christ is urging our claims in heaven.

D. Relation of Christ's Intercession to that of saints.— All true intercession is either directly or indirectly the intercession of Christ. Christians are organs of Christ's Spirit. To suppose Christ in us to offer prayer to one of his saints, instead of directly to the Father, is to blaspheme Christ, and utterly misconceive the nature of prayer.

Saints, by virtue of their union with Christ, the great high priest, are themselves constituted intercessors; and as the high priest of old bore upon his bosom the breastplate engraven with the names of the tribes of Israel (h. 28: 9-12). so the Christian is to bear upon his heart in prayer before God the interests of his family, the church, and the world (1 Tim. 2 :1 —" I eihurt therefor?. 8rst of til. Hut supplications, prayers, intercessions. thanksgivings, be mule for all man"). See Symington on Intercession, in Atonement and Intercession, 256-303.

TTT, The Kingly Office Of Christ.

This is to be distinguished from the sovereignty which Christ originally possessed in virtue of his divine nature. Christ's Kingship is the sovereignty of the divine-human Redeemer, which belonged to him of right from the moment of his birth, but which was fully exercised only from the time of his entrance upon the state of exaltation. By virtue of this kingly office, Christ rules all things in heaven and earth, for the glory of God and the execution of God's purpose of salvation.

(a) With respect to the universe at large, Christ's kingdom is a kingdom of power. He upholds, governs, and judges the world.

Ps. 2 : 6-8 —" I bare set my king Thou art my Son uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession ";

8:6 —" madest him to hare dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under bis feet" c/.

Heb. 2 : 8, 9—" we see not yet all things subjected to him. But ve behold Jesus .... crowned with glory and

honor "; Mat 25 : 31, 32 —" When the Son of man shall come in his glory .... than shall he sit on the throne of bis glory: and before him shall be gathered all the nations"; 28 :18 —" All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth "; Heb. 1 :3 —"upholding all things by the word of his power"; Rev. 19 :15,16—"smite the nations. ... rule them with a rod of iron ... King of kings, and Lord of lords."

Julius Mllllerjroof-toxts, 34, says incorrectly, as we think, that " the regnum naturm of the old theology is unsupported —there are only the regnum gratUe and the regnum gUrrkr." A. J. Gordon: "Christ is now creation's sceptre-bearer, as he was once creation's burden-bearer."

(6) With respect to his militant church, it is a kingdom of grace; he founds, legislates for, administers, defends, and augments his church on earth.

Lake 2 :11—"born to you ... a Savior, which is Christ the Lord "; 19 : 38—"Blessed is the ling that cometh in the name of the Lord "; John 18 : 36, 37 —" My kingdom is not of this world .... Thou sayest it, for I am a king .... Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice"; Sph. 1: 22—"he put all things in subjection under bis feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all"; Heb. 1: 8 —" of the Son be sailfa. Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever."

Corner, G laubenslehre, 2 : 677 (Syst. Doct., 4 :142,143) —" All great men can be said to have an after-Influence (jVacJitrfrlruna) after their death, but only of Christ can it be said that he has an after-activity (Furtwirkung). The sending of the Spirit is part of Christ's work as King." P. 8. Moxom, Bap.Quar. Rev., Jan., 1886 : 25-36—" Preeminence of Christ, as source of the church's being; ground of the church's unity; source of the church's law; mould of the church's life." A.J. Gordon: "As the church endures hardness and humiliation as united to blm who was on the cross, so she should exhibit something of supernatural energy as united with him who Is on the throne." Luther: "We tell our Lord God, that if he will have his church, he must look after it himself. We cannot sustain it, and, if we could, we should become the proudest asses under heaven."

(c) With respect to his church triumphant, it is a kingdom of glory; he rewards his redeemed people with the full revelation of himself, upon the completion of his kingdom in the resurrection and the judgment.

John 17 : 24 —" Father, that which thou has given me, I desire that, where I am, they also may be with me; that they may behold my glory"; 1 PeU 3 : 21, 22—"Jesus Christ; who is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him "; 2 Pet. 1:11 —" thus shall be richly supplied unto yon the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

Luther: "Now Christ reigns, not in visible, public manner, but through the word, just as we see the sun through a cloud. We see the light, but not the sun itself. But when the clouds are gone, then we see at the same time both light and sun." We may close our consideration of Christ's Kingship with two practical remarks: 1. We never can think too much of the cross, but we may think too little of the throne. 2. We can not have Christ as our Prophet or our Priest, unless we take him also as our King. On Christ's Kingship, see Philippi, Glaubenslehre, iv. 2 : 342-361; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 588 Hq.; Garbett, Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, 2 :243-438; J. M. Mason, Sermon on Messiah's Throne, in Works, 3 : 241-275.